Sometimes the Light
by Ibelin
Summary: The second installment in the Life and What Comes After 'verse. Obi-Wan was captured on Jabiim in 22 BBY and thought to be dead, until he was found and his lost memories restored more than a year later. So much seems to have changed in that time, Anakin most of all, and Obi-Wan must confront a galaxy and a Jedi Order that have fought the Clone Wars without him.
1. Liminal

**SEN: 501_CENTCOM_01V**

**REC: TEMPLE_COMMAND_S004**

[ 15:3:25 15:15 ]

ATTN: Jedi Temple Medbay

[ skywalker_anakin_report_15_3_ .txt ]

[ CC_7017_medreport_15_3_ .holo ]

[ kenobi_obi_wan_physical_15_3_ .azr ]

[ kenobi_obi_wan_OEI_scan_15_3_ .azr ]

* * *

Ahsoka wasn't nervous to be flying back to Coruscant alone with Master Kenobi.

Nope.

Sure, he was a legend. Sithkiller. Master of the Chosen One. And sure, Anakin was very obviously going to have a conniption fit if any tiny thing about this voyage went wrong. Still, it didn't bother her. Not even a little bit.

At least Artoo was with them.

"How do we look, Artoo?"

He was plugged into the main console's interface link, and swiveled his domed head to point his bright little photoreceptor at her. He whistled, long and extended.

"I know it's not the most efficient path, but we can't just go shooting straight through to Coruscant unless we're prepared to fight the whole Separatist fleet guarding Tirahnn," she said.

He gave several shrill beeps.

Ahsoka patted the lightsaber at her belt. "I'm with you, but the _Twilight_ isn't up for it, buddy. She's only a freighter."

Artoo was hardly impressed, but agreed to stick with her plotted route. She had told Anakin she didn't need him to double-check it, and that was true, she didn't — but she regretted the tiniest bit that she hadn't had him at least _look _at it. Just to be sure.

It was too late now. The jump had gone smoothly and, barring any unforeseen disasters, they had nothing to do but wait.

She left Artoo at the helm and went to look for Master Kenobi.

When she found him, he seemed to have just finished exploring the ship. There wasn't all that much to really explore; most of the _Twilight_ was empty space, since it was made to be filled with as much spice as possible to haul from one point to the next. Master Kenobi was in the cargo hold and seemed to be contemplating it far more deeply than it deserved, given that it was just a big, open floor and some walls. Two cargo containers were shoved into the corner, but their contents had been used up a long time ago, leaving nothing but the packing.

"What will we say if we're stopped?" he asked when she walked to stand next to him. "Given that we're a freighter with no freight."

"That we're on our way to pick up a load?"

Arms crossed, he eyed her doubtfully.

"I have a bunch of clearance codes," she said. "They should get us past an inspection, assuming the Seps aren't looking too closely. I think the goal is to not get stopped in the first place."

"And if we are?"

Was this a test? Anakin wasn't the kind of master to give tests, but Ahsoka didn't know Master Kenobi well enough yet to tell. She shrugged. "Fight our way out?"

Master Kenobi raised his eyebrows, took another look at the space, and then seemed to dismiss the matter from his mind. He walked back to the small living area, where some padded seats were set into the wall with a table between them, and a little kitchenette took up most of the rest of the space. Ahsoka followed. If there had been a test, she didn't know if she had passed or failed.

"Did you find your cabin?"

"I assumed it was the one stocked with extra sets of Anakin's tunics," he said, claiming one of the seats and slouching comfortably. He cocked his head at her, and she grinned a little.

"I'm not sure he realizes that, while his quarters might have a biopad lock, the steamers' where they keep the clean laundry doesn't."

She assumed that was where he'd filched the set he was currently wearing from, as well. Master Kenobi huffed, which was neither a confirmation nor a denial. "How long are we in for?"

"Four-ish days," said Ahsoka.

His head dropped back against the bulkhead, and he made a noise like a grunt. Not good news, then.

"It's about a day longer than it would normally take, because of the Separatist presence along the route," she explained. "I tried to shave as much distance off as possible, but they're still roadblocking the most direct paths."

"I suppose we'll have to keep ourselves occupied, then." Lifting one foot, he jogged the switch under the table with his boot, activating the holodisplay. "Do you play dejarik, by any chance?"

Ahsoka did, in fact, play dejarik.

"I haven't played in a while. Usually I play with Rex. Anakin cheats."

"Well, cheating properly is a skill of its own," said Master Kenobi, which was not at all what she had expected him to say.

Intrigued, Ahsoka took the seat across from him.

They played several rounds, and it took Ahsoka until halfway through the second one to really get familiar with the pieces and their skills again. He was already very clearly fluent in dejarik strategy; Ahsoka would ponder her next move for a minute and then make it, and he would have a move instantly ready, without having to think about it. He didn't cheat, at least that she could tell, but he didn't really need to. He was very accommodating, giving her tips and reminding her of different pieces' stats, but that didn't stop him from beating her soundly every time.

Midway through the fourth round, Artoo came rolling out of the cockpit and parked himself by the table. In a long string of beeps, he let Ahsoka know there was nothing interesting going on anywhere on the whole ship. Then he stayed and watched the game, seemingly just to heckle her.

"Sometimes I think it's a good thing that I can't understand what it's saying," said Master Kenobi.

Ahsoka moved a piece, and then glanced at Artoo. "He's pretty sure I was installed with a defective analytical core, and he could beat you in under ten moves."

"Is that so?" Master Kenobi narrowed his eyes.

"Well, he's welcome to have at it," said Ahsoka. "After this one I think I'm done for the night."

He still beat her, but this was the closest game yet.

"I like sabacc better, honestly," she said, rummaging around in the kitchenette for some of the food she had packed. Pulling out some nerf jerky for herself, she tossed the package across onto her seat and leaned over to check the conservator.

"Oh? Me too," said Master Kenobi. "Though it is harder to play a good game with just two people. Do we have a deck onboard?"

"I don't think so... Ice cream!" Ahsoka gasped. She had stocked them with plenty of human food, but she knew she hadn't put _this_ in the conservator. Brandishing the little carton in the air like a trophy, she said, "Night made! Where did this come from?"

Master Kenobi raised an eyebrow, peering over at her from where he lounged in his seat, arms clasped behind his head. She thought he might have smiled, but it was there and gone too quickly to be sure. "From Anakin, I would assume," he said. "Can you even eat dairy products?"

"I can put them in my mouth and swallow them. Usually they make my stomach hurt, but sometimes it's worth it." Ahsoka shut the conservator and stood up, looking at the carton in her hand ruefully. Anakin was sometimes almost crazy thoughtful; he had _made_ a Choosing Bead for her, and for some reason gone out of his way to pack this for them. It was true that Ahsoka had been feeling a little lost in the shuffle over the last few days, but in hindsight, maybe she had also been being a little dramatic. Really, Anakin never lost anyone. "Want some?"

"Oh no, I know he meant that for you."

While breaking out the spoons, it occurred to Ahsoka that if Anakin had put this in the conservator, then he had been on the _Twilight_ at some point before departure, but after she had finished packing. She groaned.

"Something wrong?" Master Kenobi had propped his boots up on the table, but hadn't bothered to turn off the dejarik display, so miniature holographic animals were phasing through his feet. He didn't look bothered. As a matter of fact, he looked as though he might fall asleep there, head tilted back against his arms and eyes half-lidded.

Ahsoka pulled the cushion off the other seat and chose to sit cross-legged on the floor with her ice cream. "Anakin was double-checking my route and preparations, wasn't he?"

"Hm? Possibly."

Sucking gloomily on her spoon, she said, "I don't know why he doesn't trust me to do things right." She hadn't made a serious mistake in, well— quite a while, if you didn't count the disobeying orders incident from just days ago. Anakin's shadow felt nearly impossible to live up to. No matter how well you did something, no doubt he could have done it better.

"If he didn't trust you, he wouldn't have given you the task in the first place," said Master Kenobi. His eyes were completely closed now. "I'm sure he's just being mindful of his own duty to you, as his padawan. After all, prepping the ship may have been your responsibility, but _you_ are his."

For a long moment, Ahsoka mulled this over.

"You know, Master Kenobi," she said at length, "actually, we didn't meet for the first time two days ago."

He aimed a narrowly slitted gaze at her.

"I was in one of your classes when I was an initiate. Negotiation and Mediation, I think. I was ten, I'm pretty sure, so it would have been five years ago? Six?"

"A-ah." Drawing the sound out long, he nodded. "I think I remember the class. I didn't teach very often... but I don't remember any particular students, I'm afraid. I'm sorry."

Ahsoka hadn't actually expected him to remember her. It had been a long time ago and there were hundreds of initiates, not to mention the fact that he'd just recovered from having his memory literally suppressed. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure I don't remember any of the curriculum from the class, either."

Master Kenobi snorted. "I'm sure."

"Actually, I do remember one thing," said Ahsoka.

"Don't tell me — is it the fruit?"

"Yeah! We did a mock negotiation over this jewel-fruit, only it was a trick. One side wanted the meat of the fruit, and the other side only wanted the rind, but nobody knew we wanted different things, so we couldn't compromise."

His grin was fleeting, but this time she caught it. "Everybody always remembers the fruit."

It had been an interesting exercise, and given Ahsoka quite a bit to think about in the next few days. She frowned, looking back over a childhood lesson with eyes that had seen a lot since then. "No offense, Master Kenobi, but it's not very realistic, is it? I mean, nobody in real life just realizes suddenly 'oh wait, we were never at odds in the first place,' do they?"

For the jewel-fruit negotiation, the initiates had been divided into two groups and each group given a briefing on their side's position: what they could afford to exchange for the fruit, what they ideally wanted to exchange for the fruit, why they needed the fruit, what they absolutely could NOT budge on, and so on. Some things, like their top price and lowest price, they obviously had to keep secret from the other side for the sake of effective bargaining. Nobody had thought the whole exercise could be solved instantly by just disclosing which _part_ of the fruit they needed.

In her time as a padawan Ahsoka had sat at several negotiation tables, and she had never once seen a situation as simple as that, where both parties could walk away completely happy if they were just straightforward with each other. In her experience, people didn't usually fight over something unless they needed to.

He made a humming noise. "You'd be surprised at what ridiculous, unnecessary conflicts people sometimes get into, but no, in general, you're right." Sitting up, he dropped his feet down onto the floor and roused himself back to wakefulness. "The jewel-fruit exercise is a very simplified illustration, just meant to teach a single lesson."

"Don't assume," said Ahsoka, mouth full of ice cream.

"Exactly. Most negotiations that Jedi get called into aren't just harmless misunderstandings that can be easily straightened out by honesty. Ideally, you'll be able to find a compromise that will make everyone unhappy, but less unhappy than continuing the conflict." Master Kenobi had pivoted toward her in his seat, resting an elbow on the table and raking his fingers through his bangs. "Sometimes, no compromise is possible."

"Like the war."

"Yes," he said, looking thoughtful. "There can be no compromise with the Sith."

xxx

Ahsoka had given Master Kenobi the captain's cabin, which left the crew's quarters empty. The _Twilight_ was made to be operated by just a pilot and co-pilot if necessary, but there were bunks for four crewmembers bolted to the wall, two bottom bunks and two top ones. Given that she was a crew of one, Ahsoka figured that they all belonged to her. Maybe she would even sleep in a different one every night. There would probably be enough time.

For now, she picked the fourth bunk — the bottom one furthest away from the door. Some Force-sensitives were bothered by the muted hum of hyperspace, she knew, but that had never really been a problem for her. She found it soothing, if anything. Still, sleep was difficult to come by for a while.

Staring into the darkness, she thought about Anakin, and hoped he wouldn't have too much trouble on Cartao. Ahsoka didn't really know how long the mission would take, or where he would be headed next. She had gotten a lot of information out of Rex, but not the whole picture. Being away from them at such a critical time made her uneasy. Clearly, Anakin had been hoping the Council would send her away somewhere else when she got to Coruscant, but she could convince them that her place was with her master.

Probably.

She hadn't known what to expect from Master Kenobi. She still didn't, really.

In her fuzzy recollections from five years ago, he was patient and wry. At the time she, like all the other initiates, had been intrigued to see what the Sithkiller would be like as a teacher. Ahsoka had _never_ thought that one day she'd be the Chosen One's padawan. Now, thinking of them in those terms seemed a little silly, and definitely childish. Anakin might be the Chosen One, whatever that meant, but he was still just Anakin, her master. She knew him as well as she could know anybody.

Who, though, was Master Kenobi?

Anakin was like no other Jedi, so Ahsoka had expected his master to be unique in some way as well. Master Kenobi was very smart, that much she had gathered, and operated behind a layer of reserve that was pretty normal among Jedi. Anakin obviously gravitated to him like a planet to its life-giving sun, but his own sentiments were harder to gauge. So far, he seemed very different from Anakin.

Her thoughts drifting, Ahsoka fell asleep thinking fuzzily of the Temple, and everyone she wanted to visit while she was there.

Vague disturbances in the Force stirred her to semi-wakefulness during the night, but they were quickly recognized and dismissed before they could really disrupt her sleep. The clones often had nightmares, and she knew Anakin did too; Ahsoka's subconscious was well-practiced at filtering those tremors from real distress or danger. Her own nightmares were not so easy to escape, but none of them bothered her that night. Or at least, when she woke, she didn't remember them.

She had _planned_ to sleep in. After all, there was nothing to be done and nowhere to go, which made this short voyage a rare opportunity for relaxation. Usually there would be reports to write about where she had just been, or briefings to read about where she was going, or Anakin wanting to spend every spare second training, or demanding her help to build something or break something.

Unfortunately, lying in bed all morning wasn't very restful when your stomach was rebelling against you.

Instead of getting to sleep, Ahsoka spent an uncomfortable amount of time in the refresher, and then staggered out into the living area. Artoo wasn't very sympathetic, telling her that she should have known better than to take in fuel incompatible with her systems. She could sense Master Kenobi in the cargo hold again, for some reason, so apparently he was an early riser too, but Ahsoka holed up in the cockpit by herself for a while.

When she felt less like death, she went to the kitchenette and drank some water. It looked like Master Kenobi had made both caf _and_ tea, which seemed a little excessive. Searching for evidence that he had actually eaten food too, Ahsoka didn't find any. Part of her felt like this wasn't any of her business, especially given her own poor nutritional choices. Another, vaguely Anakin-shaped part, insisted that it was. He hadn't said, but she knew that at least one of his reasons for sending her on this trip was so she could act as a proxy for him. Anakin hadn't exactly given her a clear mandate, though, and she didn't want to overstep.

Nagging _her_ master to take care of himself was one thing. Her master's master would be quite another.

Making her way to the cargo hold, Ahsoka discovered that Master Kenobi did have a good reason for being in there where nothing else was. She really should have known. He was doing katas. When she came in, he paused briefly, but continued after a moment. It was a basic hand-to-hand kata, the eighth of a ten-form sequence that initiates learned before they ever built their own lightsabers. His focus was a quiet undercurrent in the Force, and his movements were steady and even; sweat darkened his hair and stuck it to his forehead.

Clearly, he had been at it for a while already.

Ahsoka had pressed her back against the cool metal wall and, when he finished and returned to rest position, she slowly slid down to the floor and slouched there. "Ah," she said. "Training." Maybe he wasn't so different from Anakin.

"Come to join me?"

"Usually I would, but at the moment I'm not good for much." Ahsoka wrapped an arm around her stomach. "I ate the ice cream, I pay the price."

"And was it worth it?"

Making a vague hand motion, Ahsoka said, "Eh. Not the best flavor."

A hint of Master Kenobi's amusement leaked into the Force, but he simply returned to his katas. Ahsoka watched him finish out the last two of the sequence, restarting the tenth kata when his techniques were not as crisp as he wanted the first time. Sliding still further, she laid on the floor and pillowed her head on her arm. The decking was cold, but it felt nice; Anakin always ran his ships at near-molten temperatures, and she hadn't gotten around to resetting the life support settings yet.

When he was done Master Kenobi raked a hand through his sweaty hair, and Ahsoka smiled at the way it spiked up. "Well, I don't think I'm ready to move on to Teräs Käsi quite yet."

He shrugged at her, and she understood what he wasn't saying. Most of the next basic forms were lightsaber forms, and he didn't have one. Ahsoka unclipped her own 'saber from her belt, and held it up.

Frowning, he said, "That's not necessary. I can make do."

She threw it at him.

You can't just _not_ catch a lightsaber. Master Kenobi's hand shot out, snatching the spinning 'saber hilt out of the air before it could fly past him. It hadn't been that good of a throw, but hey, it wasn't actually that easy to aim lying down. He didn't stop frowning.

"Well, if you insist," he said, but still waited as if expecting her to demand it back.

Pointedly, Ahsoka closed her eyes and relaxed.

Jedi weren't exactly territorial with their lightsabers, but they weren't something to trade around flippantly like a practice 'saber or an electroblade. Each Jedi's bond with the kyber crystal that created the blade meant that a lightsaber wasn't just an inanimate weapon — it was connected to its wielder, an extension of their identity and life force. Still, Ahsoka thought his hesitation was a little archaic. In battle, you used whatever weapon you had, and it wasn't like she had proposed a Concordance of Fealty or anything.

When Master Kenobi ignited the green blade, Ahsoka felt an answering hum deep in her chest. She listened, eyes still closed, and tried to imagine his movements as he swept it through the air. She could sense where he was in a vague way without really trying, but without sharpening her focus or looking, it could have been any lightsaber form, or none at all. Instead of Master Kenobi, she pictured a sunny day on the Jedi Temple training ground, where initiate clans would be performing 'saber drills in the shadow of the Great Tree. Free practice time there had always been her favorite.

It was easy to think back on those days now with nostalgia, but at the time she had been restless and frustrated. The spires of the Temple rising up around the training ground had seemed more like prison gates. Life in the creche was busy and challenging, but Ahsoka had known she was ready to do so much more, if a master would just give her the chance. Now that she _was_ doing more, it was nice to return to the Temple. It was her home, a bedrock of peace that always stayed the same no matter how much chaos rocked the galaxy.

Some of her friends who were still in the creche probably wouldn't agree.

Opening her eyes, Ahsoka propped herself up on one elbow.

Master Kenobi was moving slowly through the end of a form, face set in concentration. She didn't recognize the sequence, but it didn't look terribly advanced. If it was Shii-Cho, she probably would have known it. Niman, maybe? His stances were clean and transitions smooth, but it must not have been as easy as it looked. Thinking hard during a form was generally a bad sign. When he finished, he shut off her lightsaber and braced a hand on his hip, shaking his head.

"Rusty?" asked Ahsoka. She sat up and crossed her legs.

"You could say that."

"What form was that? I haven't seen it."

His eyebrows lifted. "Just one of the basic Soresu series."

"We don't usually spend a lot of time on katas," she explained. He probably thought her training had been deficient, but it wasn't that, really. "Anakin likes to focus on more useful stuff."

"Katas not useful — now there's an opinion no padawan has ever expressed before." Master Kenobi's tone was dry, but there was no bite in it, and she suspected he was actually talking to Anakin. "Well, at the moment I'm afraid you're right. It's no use working on lightsaber technique until my connection to the Force is more reliable."

"You were suppressed for a long time, right?" Ahsoka had never been cut off from the Force, but the thought of it made her skin crawl. The closest thing she could imagine was going blind _and_ having your hands amputated, so you could neither see nor feel.

He nodded, and walked over to offer her back her 'saber. "Thank you for the loan."

Thoughtfully, Ahsoka took the hilt, but didn't clip it back onto her belt. "You want to practice awareness? I could shoot at you. I'm pretty sure there's a blaster or two onboard somewhere."

"Tempting," said Master Kenobi seriously, "but there's a chance I could die, and I have been strictly forbidden from doing that again."

Fairly certain that was a joke, Ahsoka tilted her head back, looking up at him. "Well, I don't think we have a Mark-H..."

"I was actually thinking of something a little less lightsaber-dependent."

It took Ahsoka a second, but then she sprang to her feet. "Scramball?"

Nodding once, Master Kenobi took a step back, out of her space. "Not literally, obviously—"

Scramball was a team game that needed at least four players, and more like six for a good one. There was never any trouble rustling up that many willing padawans or initiates at the Temple, but if he just wanted to practice Force coordination and control, there was a much more straightforward way to go about it.

"—But I _can_ throw stuff at you."

"Exactly."

"But what? We don't have a ball, or anything."

The only portable objects onboard that immediately jumped to Ahsoka's mind were either important pieces of technical gear, or the food stores — not things that should be used as projectile weapons. Master Kenobi just shrugged.

"Anything can be a ball if you apply the right pressure," he said, which was technically true and not at all helpful.

He went to the corner where the empty cargo containers were. Ahsoka could have warned him that there was nothing in them, but then he started ripping out the dense foam packing, and she understood. She clipped her lightsaber onto her belt and moved to help him. They pulled out large chunks of foam from the containers, and compressed pieces into vaguely spheroid shapes.

Ahsoka tossed a ball about the size of her fist into the air and caught it again. "These are actually pretty nice." She had thought the foam would be too light to actually have a good throwing weight, but a lot of compression was possible with the Force. It wasn't as heavy as a bronzium meditation ball, but it would work.

"If you're still not feeling well, you don't have to stay," said Master Kenobi. "I can just as easily use these on my own."

"Oh no," said Ahsoka. She was mostly fine by now, and what else was there to do on the ship? "I'm definitely going to throw these at you."

Master Kenobi took several of the makeshift balls and picked a position on the other side of the cargo hold. "Fire when ready."

Tossing one of the balls into the air, Ahsoka wrapped the Force around it. A burst of power, and it shot forward, across the bay like a rocket. Easily, he caught it.

"You're not supposed to _catch _it," said Ahsoka, firing up another one.

"Sorry, I didn't realize there were already rules to this game we are making up on the spot."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. He wanted to drill Force control, right? Couldn't do that using your hands. "Do what I do." Levitating the second ball, she whirled it around her body, like a moon orbiting a planet, and then, with a sweep of her hand, sent it moving toward him more gently. "Once it passes the bay door line, it's yours," she warned.

The handoff was wobbly.

Master Kenobi's presence was a suffusing heat in the Force, like walking out of the cool indoors into the warmth of direct sunlight. Ahsoka felt the touch of his focus, but her retreat and his advance didn't quite match up, and for a moment the ball bobbed and wheeled in the air. It would be simpler if they had a bond, of course, but they didn't.

He copied what she had done, and passed it back. It took three or four more exchanges to get the process down smooth. Ahsoka picked random patterns, tracing the ball in symbol shapes in the air, or zig-zagging it and making it dance before pushing it back to him to do the same. When it seemed like they had the give-and-take working almost automatically, she sped up.

"Hard mode."

The ball whipped around her, flashing back and forth between them.

"Hard?" he said. While she was pulling the ball through a series of concentric circles on her side, Master Kenobi raised an open hand and levitated another one. Both balls passed each other in the air, and Ahsoka's eyes narrowed. Ultra mode, then.

She widened her stance a little, taking a breath and sinking deeper into the Force. Now she had to be aware of what he was doing, so that she could duplicate it, at the same time as she was creating her own pattern. At a higher speed, splitting that attention was a challenge. Instead of intensifying her focus on every detail, Ahsoka tried to relax. She let go of conscious thought. The Force was everywhere, every point in time — relying on it would always be faster and more accurate than relying on her own senses and brain to tell her what she needed to know.

Her movements became instinct. There was a timing to it, a rhythm like the push and pull of the tides, and Ahsoka fell into it, becoming a part of it. Her mind quieted, open to the Force, and her heartbeat slowed. It was almost like meditation.

Then, Master Kenobi added two more balls.

It was impossible to keep exchanging patterns — there wasn't time, with that many moving pieces — but Ahsoka knew what he had in mind. She could sense it, and adapted fluidly. They didn't follow each other anymore. Now they moved simultaneously, swirling the balls in intricate rotations at the same time, and then pushing them back the way they had come to do it again. It had turned into a sort of kata, Ahsoka thought, one that they were creating on the fly together, move by move.

When they incorporated another pair of balls, it was by unspoken mutual agreement. Six of them spun through the air, whipping by Ahsoka's montrals and then curving back around like comets tracing a far-flung orbit. It looked as if a few of them should hit each other on their paths, but they didn't. It would have taken a compu-droid a few minutes to calculate the patterns underlying the seemingly chaotic movement, but to Ahsoka they were as clear in the Force as the notes of a song she was playing.

A ball smacked against the bulkhead, slipping off-course, and a discordant ripple burned through the empty clarity — frustration, edged with dismay.

Ahsoka caught one ball automatically as it began to fall, but the others were out of her reach. They dropped, hitting the ground and rolling wildly every which-way. Blinking, Ahsoka refocused, jarred suddenly out of the quasi-meditative state she had sunk into. What had happened?

Master Kenobi stood with his hand pressed to his face, just under his nose. When he pulled it away, she saw the blood.

"Sithspit," Ahsoka said. She knew what that meant.

"It's _fine_." His annoyance was a bright, angry flare in the Force. "Just a nosebleed."

"Maybe we should take a break?"

"It seems so," he said, frowning darkly at his hand.

He went to the 'fresher to clean up, and Ahsoka retreated to the kitchenette, feeling like the biggest idiot the Jedi Temple had ever produced. Her mandate _absolutely_ didn't include letting Master Kenobi push himself to the point of psychic shock. She had gotten caught up in the new drill and hadn't even thought to wonder whether it was a safe exertion for him. Anakin would have her hide.

Not knowing what else to do, she made food for both of them and heated up the caf.

When he reappeared, the bleeding seemed to have stopped, and there was no sign of his earlier irritation. "I hope Anakin wasn't too attached to these tunics," said Master Kenobi, rubbing at a new dark stain on the collar of the outer tunic.

"A little blood adds character." Ahsoka took a caf cup in both hands and offered it to him.

With both hands, he took it. "Thank you, Ahsoka."

Relief lightened the tight knot in her chest, and she gave him a hopeful, crooked smile. She wouldn't insult him with apologies. After all, he was a Jedi Master — or a knight? Ahsoka had assumed he was a master, but she wasn't actually sure — and could direct his own training. He was probably the type who would scoff if she tried to claim any responsibility anyway... but it was still nice to know that nothing serious had been broken.

"Next time, maybe I'll stop at four," said Master Kenobi thoughtfully, taking a sip of the caf.

His tone was wry, but— "Next time?"

"We still have days left," he pointed out. "I'm hardly going to spend them twiddling my thumbs."

"Of course." Ahsoka sighed.

"Unless you're up for another game of dejarik?"

She crossed her arms, giving him the unimpressed look he was certainly expecting. "Well, I _was_ thinking you might wait until we got to the Temple to begin training under the supervision of healers, but obviously that was unrealistic."

"Your instincts serve you well. I can see why Anakin chose you as his padawan."

"I like to think that it was for my irresistible charm and many talents," said Ahsoka, matching his sarcasm. "But _chose_ would be a bit of an exaggeration."

"Oh?"

Master Kenobi's eyebrows rose over the caf cup, and Ahsoka kicked herself. What had possessed her to bring that up? It was in the past, and didn't even bother her anymore. She hadn't really talked about it with anyone, not even her friends, so why should she start now?

"Yeah..." Her clear reluctance elongated the word. "Master Yoda _kind of_ twisted his arm."

Dryly, he said, "It seems there's a lot of that going around."

"A lot of what?"

Master Kenobi leaned against the counter. "Almost the same thing happened to me."

Really? Ahsoka had never heard about that. Not from Anakin, obviously — he talked about his past selectively and sparingly — but not from any of the stories and rumors, either. "Master Yoda strong-armed you, too?"

"No." He snorted, like the thought was amusing. "He strong-armed my master."

Part of Ahsoka wanted to react with disbelief. No one had chosen Master Kenobi? That couldn't be right — in his time, the war hadn't started. There should have been plenty of masters to go around. But it probably hadn't been like that, she reasoned on second thought. Who could tell what plans Master Yoda had up his sleeve? He probably had just had something very specific in mind for Master Kenobi at the time.

Master Yoda usually wasn't wrong, anyway. For a long time, Ahsoka had felt driven by Anakin's initial rejection, trying to outrun it, prove that she could be good enough for him. He was still a lot to keep up with, but now it felt like they had always been meant to work together. It had probably been the same for Master Kenobi and his master, and for him and Anakin. She shrugged. "Well, I think Anakin and I ended up making a pretty good team."

"Yes, I think you do."

Master Kenobi couldn't have had much basis on which to form an opinion, but his agreement still made her want to beam a little. "And if _you_ had to go back and do it again, you would still pick Anakin, right?"

Ahsoka had asked the question before she thought about it. It wasn't, probably, something she would have said if she had taken the time to consider it, but something about Master Kenobi made it easy to speak freely to him. The only possible answer was yes, like Anakin had said when he gave her the Choosing Bead he'd made — but Master Kenobi only frowned slightly, and the silence stretched.

After a long minute, he said, "I have to believe that things happened as they were meant to."

It wasn't the _yes, of course_ response she had expected. Had she stepped on a land mine of some kind? Ahsoka felt caught, unsure which way to go from here. Why wouldn't you choose Anakin? Her master was amazing, a great Jedi. She didn't know what, exactly, Master Kenobi was thinking about, but it was clear that if she persisted in this line of questioning she would quickly find herself overstepping.

"He turned out okay. Only a _tiny_ bit on the crazy side," she joked, trying for flippancy.

He tilted his head at her, saying just as easily, "That's true. You can't argue with results."

Ahsoka still didn't know him very well, but she was pretty sure he could and would argue with results, if necessary. He didn't argue when she suggested eating lunch, though, seeming as pleased to leave behind serious subjects as she was. Afterward, he went straight back to the cargo hold, which wasn't too surprising. She had dared to hope that maybe he would reconsider, but Ahsoka had known better than to really expect it.

The _Twilight_ didn't have a full medbay, just a holostation with some med droid programming. She didn't know what she would do if he went into full psychic shock. And sure, a nosebleed was a long way from that point, but it still was a sign that you were lifting heavier than your body could handle.

Luckily, when Ahsoka checked on him throughout the afternoon, he seemed to be spending most of that time meditating. A few of the balls they had created levitated in front of him as he sat, cross-legged and eyes closed, and she sensed nothing but steady focus in the Force.

For herself, Ahsoka pulled out a datapad and got caught up on all the correspondence she'd been semi-ignoring for the last month or so. She had answered _some_ of it — the important stuff. Mostly. Her responses to notes from her friends had been sporadic, though, ever since... well, ever since she had been captured by those Trandoshans. Really, she was just busy, she tried to tell herself. And she _was_ busy. It wasn't like the war ever took a break.

But she had been busy since the day she became Anakin's padawan, and she had still been pretty good about keeping in touch with her friends. Throwing herself into the missions to the exclusion of all else was newer, and she had to admit it smacked of avoiding something she didn't want to think about. Ahsoka couldn't deny that much, but she didn't have to think about it — whatever it was — _now_.

Instead, she went steadily through her messages, recording responses and queueing them to be sent once they left hyperspace. It would be a little bit silly at that point, since most of her friends were on Coruscant and by the time the _Twilight _dropped out of hyperspace, they would be mere hours away from landing at the Temple. Better late than never, though.

Expanding a message from Padme, Ahsoka smiled. She would definitely have to visit the senator while she was on Coruscant. Who else had she not spoken to in a while? Barriss, she thought, pulling up her friend's private comlink channel. There wasn't much chance she would be at the Temple when Ahsoka was, but she could at least send Barriss a quick message.

Thinking about the comm she would send Anakin when they touched down (_we made it, no complications, your master is fine_) Ahsoka superstitiously didn't draft it. There were, after all, still three days left.

Master Kenobi emerged from the cargo bay hours later. Ahsoka could sense his fatigue, but he was mobile and not bleeding, so that was good. He tried to provoke her into playing dejarik again, but Ahsoka held her ground.

"I know who _is_ willing to play you, though," she said cheerfully.

He scoffed at the very idea, but eventually got bored enough to start a game with Artoo.

Ahsoka grinned down at her datapad, listening to Artoo's trash talk. Master Kenobi didn't know what he was saying, but clearly had his suspicions. He alternated between aiming a narrow-eyed gaze at Artoo and frowning over the board in deep concentration.

As entertaining as it was, Ahsoka didn't get to find out who won. She went to the cockpit to check on everything before heading to bed, and ended up curled up in the pilot's chair watching the hypnotic radiance of hyperspace dance outside the viewport. They were on schedule, and all the ship's readings were perfect. She wished Anakin were here.

"Please, the table's computer could make a better move than that."

Faintly, Ahsoka heard Master Kenobi's voice from the living area, and Artoo's indignant shriek. She fell asleep there without even realizing it, head slumped against the seat, light and shadow rippling over her in an infinite flow.


	2. Not Again

**SEN: shaak_ti (975X270147)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

[ 15:3:26 06:09 ]

Phase III armor production has been delayed and likely won't start mass production until nearly the end of the year.

That will be the official answer to your inquiry, according to the communication record. Nala Se blames resource shortage, the improvements the Separatists have made in their weapons systems, and prototype failures. However, off the record, I was not completely satisfied with her answers. I will look into it further.

* * *

Ahsoka woke with a lurch.

First, she was aware that her neck hurt, and second, that someone had draped one of the blankets from the bunks over her during the night. She was pretty sure it hadn't been Artoo.

She hadn't meant to fall asleep in the cockpit. How much time had passed?

Moving to sit up, Ahsoka froze. The viewport was empty, the lights of hyperspace gone. She jumped to her feet, leaning over the controls to scan the horizon. There weren't even any stars visible. Just pure black nothingness.

Her pulse pounded, adrenaline burning away all trace of sleep. Reaching into the Force, Ahsoka took a deep breath and calmed herself. They were definitely not in hyperspace anymore — she could sense that much. It had probably been the drop that had awakened her. But as to where they actually _were_, not even the ship's navicomputer could guess. When she attempted a calculation, it just kept returning errors.

All the _Twilight_'s systems were still working, which was good news. Assuming they were still working reliably, Ahsoka had spent almost the entire night in the pilot's chair; it was nearly the beginning of the ship's day cycle. She got the navicomputer to render a chart of their route. They had still been traveling the Vaathkree Trade Corridor, their last recorded position near the Shataum Sector, but that didn't make sense. From there, thousands of stars should be easily visible, as well as a few planets.

What the _kriff_?

Ahsoka ran diagnostics and, while she was waiting for them to come back, double-checked everything manually. Every system was live, but she honestly couldn't even tell if the ship was moving. With no stationary visual to measure by and none of the instruments recording the _Twilight_'s position, they might as well have been suspended in a vacuum. It was eerie. She tried to focus on the readouts, and not the chill running up her spine.

The cockpit door hissed open. Master Kenobi's hair was mussed and he only wore a long-sleeved undershirt and pants. Despite clearly being as recently roused from sleep as she was, his gaze was sharp and alert as he took in the darkened viewport. "What happened? I felt us leave hyperspace."

"Yeah... about that. I think we're lost."

"Lost," he repeated in a tone of deep skepticism. When he stepped up beside her to look at the navicomputer, his frown dug a crease into his forehead. "Is it malfunctioning?"

"Not according to diagnostics," said Ahsoka. She suddenly felt much less apprehensive, just talking about it easing some tension. Everything was way creepier when you were alone. "We've definitely left hyperspace, but we weren't scheduled to drop out until days from now. And there are no warnings or errors coming from the hyperdrive. The navcomp can't pinpoint our location anywhere in the known galaxy, but there's supposedly no issue with it either."

"Interesting."

"That's one way to put it."

"We didn't hit a mass shadow or gravity well?"

Ahsoka spread her arms in an elaborate shrug. "For that, you'd need some kind of _mass_. And look — there's nothing out there. Not even stars."

"Then what do you call that?" he said reasonably, pointing.

As soon as Ahsoka looked up, she saw it. In the total blackness outside the viewport, a single distant light had become visible, like a faraway star. It hadn't been there before — it wasn't like she could have missed it, when there was nothing else there. For a long moment, they just watched it, first a tiny pinprick, then steadily becoming more prominent.

"Whatever it is," said Ahsoka, "I think it's getting closer."

"Or _we_ are approaching it."

Master Kenobi checked the engine controls. The sublight engines were firing; Ahsoka had looked at them earlier. So the ship was, in fact, moving. Usually, the star charts would tell you exactly what system or planet you were nearing. Almost never did you have to just wait, and find out where you were going when you got there. It was a strange feeling.

"Where's the astromech?"

"Artoo!" yelled Ahsoka. The mysterious light was big enough now that it was clearly some kind of astronomical object. It was round in shape, and Ahsoka could see a cross-hatching of lines, dark and bright, covering its surface. "Planet?" she guessed.

"Asteroid?" Master Kenobi crossed his arms. "Space station?"

"Space station?" Ahsoka repeated, making a face at him. They were already close enough to tell that it was much larger than any space station.

"Well does it _look_ organic to you?"

It didn't, not particularly, but the galaxy was diverse, and Ahsoka didn't feel qualified to judge at this distance. Artoo trundled into the cockpit, beeping that he had been restfully charging, and why had they interrupted him?

"Sorry, Artoo," said Ahsoka. "It's kind of an emergency. Can you do some scans of the ship's systems? The navcomp isn't working."

He plugged into the console on the other side of the co-pilot's chair.

Still focused on the viewport, Master Kenobi scratched through the stubble covering his chin. "Where is the light coming from?"

"What do you mean?"

"Planets and asteroids don't _emit_ their own light," he said scathingly, as if that fact had personally offended him.

Ahsoka blinked. "There's no sun. So we shouldn't even be able to see it." Was it _glowing_ on its own? "That's just... weird."

By now, the thing — whatever it was — loomed close, blocking out most of the viewport. It was bright, mostly white-gray, with dark stripes of shadow running all across it, like lines left from the work of millions of tunneling termites. Ahsoka couldn't see any natural features, no seas or mountains or craters, just the uniform pattern of wandering lines. She sat down in the pilot's seat, reaching for the control yoke and pulling up. There was no way they wanted to land on this thing without knowing a little more about what was going on.

The _Twilight_ didn't respond.

Their course was unchanged, still moving straight toward the surface. Ahsoka pulled harder, yanking the yoke until the ship should have been pushed into a dangerously steep climb. Nothing. The thing was getting closer by the second; if it had an atmosphere, they would have entered it by now.

"Uh," said Ahsoka.

"The ship is disabled?"

Master Kenobi didn't sound too bothered, but Ahsoka had to work to keep the panic out of her voice as she flipped through half the controls on the console. "Everything's live! Every system is working perfectly, just—" Nothing she did had any impact on the _Twilight_'s trajectory. Someone was steering, but it definitely wasn't her.

"I get the feeling that we are not the ones in control here."

The back of Ahsoka's head hit the seat hard. A cold wash of dread poured through her, and in its wake... clarity. "I think I know where we are," she said, flat. "You better sit down and buckle up."

"Do tell," said Master Kenobi.

Turning to look at him over her shoulder, she pointed at the co-pilot's seat. "Buckle. Up."

He glanced out the viewport one more time, at the quickly-approaching surface, and did as she said. "So, what are we preparing for?"

"Probably a crash that will knock us unconscious, but when we wake up, the ship will have somehow landed perfectly." Ahsoka gripped the armrests, trying to breathe evenly and let her body relax. She could sense the bright tang of his curiosity, and said grimly, "Not so long ago — a few months, I guess — Anakin and I were kidnapped by some crazy Force planet. There were these three — beings. They could do things with the Force that I have _never _seen before. This was how it started. Losing control of the ship, being pulled in... almost just like this."

She really should have figured it out earlier. Her memories of that time were there, but strange and fragmented. Half of it felt like a dream, and she couldn't be sure some things that she remembered had actually happened. But the beginning... that was clear enough.

"So you think these... _beings_ have hijacked the ship?"

"Nah," Ahsoka grunted as the g-forces increased. They were hurtling toward the ground now, and she had better be right about this, because they would end up as paste if she was wrong. "Pretty sure we left all of them dead."

"Then what, the planet itself?"

He sounded skeptical, and Ahsoka wished she had the luxury of skepticism. "_I_ don't know! Nothing in this place obeyed natural rules. Not even the plants and animals. Like I said, it was crazy — almost like a vision. Anakin fell to the Dark Side... I fell to the Dark Side... It was a bad time!"

A roar surrounded the ship. Master Kenobi, pressed back into his own seat by the pressure, threw her a look of startled concern, as if he thought she had lost her mind. "Excuse me?" he shouted over the noise, but Ahsoka couldn't answer.

As her vision began to white out, she really hoped there would be less dying this time.

xxx

Ahsoka woke, for the second time in half an hour, uninjured but feeling dazed and clouded. It was the same as before. The ship was fine, and so were Master Kenobi and Artoo. As far as she could tell from peering out the viewport, the _Twilight_ seemed to have been forcibly landed in some kind of stone courtyard, ringed on each side by high walls.

"Definitely not organic," murmured Master Kenobi. "Do you recognize this?"

Ahsoka shook her head. "I remember cliffs and flowers and creepy castles. Nothing like this."

"Perhaps it's a different place after all."

Screwing up her face, Ahsoka didn't answer. How many different all-powerful Force planets could there be? Master Kenobi tried all the _Twilight_'s controls; Ahsoka hadn't bothered, because she had known what he would find — all of them live, none of them responding. He started an environmental scan, though, which at the very least should be interesting. Too bad they hadn't thought to do that last time.

"Breathable atmosphere. Readings indicate it's bigger than an asteroid," he reported.

"Huh," she said. "I guess it _is_ a space station, then."

He rolled his eyes.

When they ventured out, they found that the courtyard was huge — at least four times the size of a Star Destroyer's main hangar — and completely deserted aside from the _Twilight_. It was pentagonal and fashioned out of some kind of white-gray stone, but there were no cobbles or bricks, or even telltale seams like you would find in duracrete to show that it had been built by anyone. If it weren't patently impossible, the courtyard, walls and all, seemed almost like a natural formation. They had been placed, with their ship, at its perfect center, as if by a giant, deliberate hand.

Scuffing her boot over the perfectly-even ground suspiciously, Ahsoka didn't think it _looked_ like it was glowing, but neither was there any sun in the sky to provide the illumination they were seeing by.

Given the size of the courtyard, the walls rising up on each of its five sides must have been very high. They already looked big, and from this distance... well. They would be too high to jump, anyway. Clearly, they weren't meant to have to jump. In each of the walls, splitting it down its own perfect center, was a yawning, dark slit. From here, they looked about as wide as a finger on Ahsoka's hand, but from up close they must be massive openings. It was comforting to know that they weren't trapped here in this featureless courtyard, at least, but those doors didn't exactly look inviting, either.

Rolling in a slow circle, Artoo beeped.

"You got that right," said Ahsoka. "What exactly are we supposed to be doing here?"

"What does the Force tell you?"

Master Kenobi was taking in their surroundings with interest and, as Ahsoka reached into the Force, she felt his presence beside her. The Force was bright and burning, so much living energy humming around her that Ahsoka almost felt the potential was limitless. Perhaps the walls _weren't _too high to jump.

"It's... vibrant," she said. "Almost unnaturally vibrant, since there's nothing living nearby. But it's directionless."

There were no whispered warnings, no quiet prompts. Ahsoka hadn't quieted her mind to listen as intently as meditation would allow, but she didn't think it would make a difference if she did. The Force was an infinite pool, the breath in her lungs, power sparking at her fingertips — but she sensed no intent behind it.

"Whatever brought us here was certainly not _directionless_," said Master Kenobi thoughtfully.

"Maybe we just need a new perspective. How high can your rocket boosters take you, Artoo?"

Whistling, Artoo set no hard limit on his maximum altitude. It was entirely fuel-dependent.

"Think you could go up enough to get us a peek at what's beyond those walls?"

He swiveled his domed head. If she wanted to make him useless for anything else afterward, he said.

Ahsoka considered. "The ship still has power. You can charge again after. Plus, I'll give you a boost."

The _Twilight_'s lateral wing was extended behind them. Calling on the Force, Ahsoka jumped up onto it, and then higher onto the roof of the ship itself. It was easy. Ahsoka felt the energy channeling through her at the slightest touch of her focus. She knew she could do more, but... Glancing at the distant walls, and then upward into the featureless, black sky, she shook her head. A jump like that — she didn't even know if Anakin would be able to do it.

"Come on, Artoo," she called.

Ahsoka leaned over the side of the ship, and Artoo rolled up beneath her. Reaching down with the Force, she lifted him, pulling him through the air as smoothly as a turbolift and setting him down on the _Twilight_'s roof beside her.

"There. Now there's a little less further to go."

He beeped, and then fired his rocket boosters. He flew straight upwards, not like a missile fired in a split second, but at a steady and even pace. Craning her neck, Ahsoka watched Artoo get smaller and smaller as he climbed higher. His coloring and the blue flame of his rockets made him impossible to lose track of, no matter how distant he became. She glanced down, trying to measure the height of the walls, and compare it to how far Artoo had flown.

On the ground, Master Kenobi had sat down on the stone. Anakin's dark tunics made him an inky blot against the sea of white that enveloped them. Was he meditating?

When Artoo came down, he seemed to do it a lot faster than he had gone up. He streaked past the _Twilight_, shrieking, and fired his boosters at the last second to cushion the landing. Ahsoka jumped down beside him. "Well, did you see anything?"

In answer, Artoo projected a hologram. It was a birds' eye view, patched together from the 360-degree footage and scans Artoo had been able to do of their surroundings. Outlined in thready blue light was the courtyard, the walls, and beyond it — more walls. It took Ahsoka a second to recognize what she was seeing.

Master Kenobi opened his eyes when Ahsoka approached. "This place is some kind of Force nexus," he said, tipping his head back to look up at her. His gaze was unfocused, and his pupils almost swallowed up the blue of his eyes.

"Yeah?" said Ahsoka, pointing to Artoo's projection. "It's also a maze."

"A maze?" He stood up, and Ahsoka was glad to see his attention sharpen almost immediately. Crossing his arms over his chest, he surveyed the holo rendering. "Interesting. This seems a little on the nose."

That was the second time he had called this situation _interesting_.

Ahsoka was already itching to move. The black sky above them seemed to press in, and walls loomed on every side. They were like insects caught in a box. What did their captors intend — to crush them, or release them? "We have to find whoever's doing this, but we only have a few days' worth of supplies on the ship. If it takes us any longer than that to escape this maze, we're in trouble."

"Escape may not be the point. Remember the way the planet looked from above?"

She remembered the uniformity of it — like a bright ball of twine, with darker lines etched all over its surface. No other visible features. Ahsoka's stomach dropped, a sinking, trapped feeling filling her with unease. "You think this whole _planet_ is a maze?"

"It would make sense with what we've seen so far." Meeting her eyes, he said firmly, "I also think that whoever or whatever called us here would hardly have gone to all that trouble just to watch us starve to death."

Maybe not. Starvation wasn't much of a spectator sport. She didn't think the Father or any of the other strange beings she and Anakin had met last time this happened would be interested in doing something so petty. But they were dead, or at least they had _seemed_ to die. Who else could be out there, watching them? Memories of being hunted threatened to flood Ahsoka's body with adrenaline, beating in her veins until her only impulse was to lash out. Taking a slow breath, Ahsoka pushed past them. Focus on the present.

She was a Jedi. Not prey.

"So if we're not supposed to find the way out, what _are_ we supposed to do?"

"I don't know," said Master Kenobi. "But there's only one way to find out."

His gesture indicated the wall across from them, and the gaping doorway that split it in two. Ahsoka sighed. They _could_ also just camp out here and, in protest, refuse to play the little game they had been set up with. Their food supplies wouldn't last, though, so she supposed they might as well get it over with. Usually, she would be listening for the Force's undercurrent of direction right about now, but there had been no change in its silence.

"Which way do you think we should go?"

Shrugging, Master Kenobi said, "Either one direction is as good as another, or they're all deeply meaningful and the choice we make now will define our experience in the maze. There doesn't seem to be any way to tell, though, so I was just thinking that one."

Ahsoka blinked. His choice was the one the _Twilight_'s nose was pointing toward. Aside from that, it seemed identical to all the others. "Okay. Why not, I guess."

"Exactly."

Artoo's whistle warned her that he was heading back to the ship to charge. He had used up too much power in his reconnaissance flight to go with them. Watching him roll back towards the _Twilight_, Ahsoka said, "I wonder if we should bother bringing any provisions."

"If you want," said Master Kenobi. "Would it have helped last time?"

No. She couldn't really think of anything that would have helped last time. Ahsoka shook her head. "Let's just go." As they set out for the far wall, every step taking them further from the _Twilight_, something occurred to her suddenly. "I should warn you, though, that last time when we walked away from the ship, it disappeared."

"Permanently?"

"No, but it was a hassle to get it back."

He made a thoughtful noise, glancing over his shoulder at the ship. "I suppose we'll deal with that when the time comes."

They didn't have much of a choice.

The gap in the wall had looked like a slit from far away. From up close, it was a towering gateway, walls of smooth stone ending at abrupt corners, and turning inward to form a narrow passageway — one of the many entrances to the maze. Stepping through plunged them into shadow.

Though it was wide enough for maybe four people to walk shoulder to shoulder, the passage seemed like a cave compared to the wide-open white world of the courtyard. There was still light, but it came only from the stone beneath their feet. The walls were just walls, inert slabs of rock, and the light from the pathway wasn't strong enough to fill the whole passage. Where it dwindled and failed, darkness gathered above their heads.

Ahsoka looked up, but it was impossible to make out the top of the walls. They faded completely into the black of the sky overhead, trapping them. After that, she kept her eyes fixed on the illuminated path.

When no one was talking, the soft scuffs of their boots on the stone sounded absurdly loud, chafing on Ahsoka's nerves. She could hear herself breathing, and every swallow seemed like it made an audible click. There was no other noise. No bird sounds, no wind, no nothing. It almost made her want to scream just to shatter the unnatural silence.

"In my negotiation class," Master Kenobi began, "did I cover the Framer's Principle?"

A sharp exhale of relief caught in Ahsoka's throat. She swallowed, trying to sound normal and relaxed as she responded, "Maybe? I pretty much only remember the fruit."

"Well, in short, it's the idea that the one setting the terms of the negotiation often is able to control the negotiation itself. That's why delegations often spend so much time in conflict over where the negotiations will be held, who will attend, what will be discussed, and other seemingly minor details. Much of the balance of power tends to be decided before anyone even comes to the table."

Master Kenobi spoke almost offhand, as if they were in the Temple halls discussing theory that didn't particularly interest either of them, not following an eerily illuminated path through what almost looked like a yawning void. Ahsoka's hand had dropped to her lightsaber hilt, and she let it rest there, trying to focus on his words.

"Like Sokan," she said. All things being equal in lightsaber combat, the better duelist would always win. Since all things were very rarely equal, though, the principle of environmental awareness during combat taught that the duelist who chose the field of engagement had the advantage.

"Yes, very similar. Have you heard the saying, 'How do you escape an inescapable room?'"

Ahsoka hadn't, but she had heard countless similar koans and riddles during her education in the creche. After a moment's thought, the answer was clear. "Don't enter."

Master Kenobi said nothing. When Ahsoka looked over at him, the light coming from below cast strange shadows on his face, but she could still see him smiling faintly. He raised an eyebrow at her. "When I asked Anakin that question, he said, 'Break down a wall.'"

She snorted. Of course he had. "Yeah, if it were a _real _room. But it's a philosophical exercise."

"Well, this isn't," he said, looking upward into the infinite darkness.

"What does that mean for us?"

"I expect we'll have to take a page out of Anakin's playbook, and be ready to break down some walls."

Not much later, they came upon their first fork in the road.

The bright path split in three parts, offering a choice to either continue straight ahead as they had been, or make a right-angled turn either to the right or the left. When Ahsoka stood in the crossroads and tried to look down each direction, there was almost no visibility. The left-hand one seemed to be shorter, so it might turn earlier — or it might just be a dead end.

Closing her eyes, Ahsoka reached out with her senses. There was nothing in the Force except a sense of shifting potential, some kind of awaiting intent. She couldn't tell if it was benevolent intent or malicious, but her own feeling was one of foreboding. Trying to cast her mind back to the courtyard, Ahsoka couldn't find the _Twilight_ in the Force. That wasn't too surprising, since there was nothing there to sense but machinery anyway. Even assuming everything was still as they had left it, she didn't know if she would be able to tell — but it was still disconcerting.

Ahsoka couldn't shake the impression that there was nothing behind them and nothing ahead. There was only the present, and the stone under their feet.

"Any ideas?" she asked. "I wish Artoo could have come with us."

Master Kenobi was bright in the Force, as if the latent energy of their strange surroundings were focused and refracted through him. "Well, according to maze theory," he said cheerfully, "we are in deep trouble."

Maze theory? She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're _enjoying_ this."

"It's not every day you get captured by a Force planet. So far, I much prefer it to other types of being captured."

_So far_, Ahsoka thought, but she had seen the scars on his hands and neck. He probably had a point.

Flipping her lightsaber hilt into her hand, she ignited it. In the Force, the green glow was like a lightning strike; the fabric of the world around them seemed to resonate in response to its hum. "We can at least know where we've been." With two flicks of the blade, Ahsoka scored a charred X into the glowing pavement stones.

"Good idea. It will be interesting, if we do double back, to see whether we can actually make lasting changes to this environment," observed Master Kenobi, as if it didn't matter in the least.

"You think any mark I make will disappear?"

He shrugged. "If you expect the ship to disappear, I don't know why anything else should stay."

Actually, Ahsoka was really hoping that the ship _hadn't_ disappeared. And last time, it had been specifically stolen. She extinguished her 'saber, meaning to clip it back to her belt, but then paused. She turned it back on, concentrating on its vibration, and then switched it off again. She could feel Master Kenobi's attention on her, but she felt something else, too. There was something out there, faint and indistinct, but it felt almost like her lightsaber — or at least some kind of echo of its signature in the Force.

She turned to Master Kenobi, who waited with an expectantly raised eyebrow. "Okay. I have two insights. First, is there a possibility that you might be slightly loopy?"

"That sounds more like a question than an insight."

Frowning, Ahsoka said, "I'll take that as a yes."

He crossed his arms, tilted his head toward the sky, and took a long breath. When he looked back at her, his voice was more even, though in the Force he was still lit up like a wire conducting live current. "The Force in this place is strong, and my sense of myself still may not be exactly... stable. But I am in full command of my actions. You should have nothing to fear from me, if that is what worries you."

"Oh," said Ahsoka, surprised. "That wasn't what I—"

"What about your second insight? I think we should try to move on, before whatever brought us here begins to get impatient."

She eyed him for a moment, and then nodded. Message received. Moving on. "I sensed something. I feel that we should turn here." With her 'saber hilt, Ahsoka indicated the passage to the right.

"Lead the way," he said.

Ahsoka did. Master Kenobi kept pace with her, and she heard him scuff his boot over the mark she had left. She kept her 'saber in her hand, unlit but ready just in case. The path was the same as the first, identical in every way, except for the faraway prickle she could just feel on the edge of her awareness. Something so tiny or distant usually wouldn't have been discernible, but in this place, with no life at all, anything was enough to send ripples across the Force's infinite pool.

The passage split again after not too long, this time into only two alternate paths. When Ahsoka leaned into the Force, it was pretty clear which one would take her closer to the tremor she sensed. She turned without hesitation, Master Kenobi at her shoulder. He didn't comment, so she figured he must be content to trust her instincts.

Six turns later, Master Kenobi still hadn't said anything. It was beginning to bother her, just a little. What if they were just turning and turning, walking deeper and deeper into nothingness, an illusion meant to deceive and trap them? The small reverberation she was tracking was much closer now, Ahsoka was sure of it.

"Do you sense it?" she asked. She hadn't meant to whisper, but speaking loudly seemed like some kind of violence. Even their steps made almost no sound.

"Perhaps," said Master Kenobi. "I can't be sure it's exactly what you're sensing, but there is... something."

That wasn't too comforting, but at least Ahsoka could be fairly certain she wasn't hallucinating. She saw another split in the maze looming up ahead, and already knew which path she would take. Focused more on the Force than on what her eyes were seeing, Ahsoka turned into the left-hand passage, and then stopped.

Instead of stretching on ahead, a glowing ribbon through the darkness like all the others, the path terminated abruptly. An arched doorway stood in front of them, on a much smaller scale than anything else they had seen in this place yet. Master Kenobi probably could have lifted his arm and touched the top of the arch. Strange glyphs outlined the doorway, not from any language or code Ahsoka had ever seen before, and they glowed with the same white light as the illuminated path. There was no door, and beyond the doorway there was no light. They would have to step through into utter darkness.

"This looks like a trap," said Ahsoka.

Master Kenobi did not say that this whole planet was a trap, though she thought he wanted to. Instead, he moved in front of her and said, "This is progress." Thoughtfully, he traced a few of the glyphs, and Ahsoka could barely make out the shape of his frown, silhouetted against the backdrop of their light. When he stepped forward like he was just going to walk blindly in, Ahsoka threw out a hand to stop him.

"Wait! Let me go first. At least I'm armed."

The look he gave her was as if she had said something very funny. He passed over the threshold and vanished. Ahsoka didn't think — she leaped after him.

She didn't know what she had expected. Falling through an endless void? Some kind of Dark Side trap, like the Son would set? Her jump took her through the doorway, and landed her in outer space.

The darkness was no longer empty, but sparkled with stars. The maze was gone. There was no sign of the door. Ahsoka could see stars below her when she looked down, but her feet felt securely planted on _something_. A ring of symbols shone above her head, as if they had been etched around the base of a domed ceiling and, long after the building itself had crumbled to nothing, the writing remained. The same sort of glyphs that had been around the doorframe, Ahsoka guessed, though she still recognized none of them.

Master Kenobi stood a few feet away on the same invisible surface, head tilted back to take in the glowing symbols. She could feel an echo of his wonder and sense that he was deep in thought, but anything else was drowned out. The Force felt resonant, infinitely deep, like the great, unimaginable oneness that Ahsoka sometimes caught just the tiniest glimpse of during meditation. Like a word spoken here might be heard halfway across the galaxy.

And yet, Ahsoka knew exactly what had drawn her here.

Between her and Master Kenobi, in the center of this strange place, were two small objects. One of them was as familiar to Ahsoka as her own lightsaber. Glancing at Master Kenobi, she walked forward — across empty space, across nothing — and stopped. At her feet was a small stone, and beside it, a transparent dodecahedron about the size of an average holocron.

"This was put here for me." Ahsoka pointed at the stone, a little relieved to hear her own voice.

Master Kenobi turned from his contemplation of the glyphs. She didn't know how to interpret the strange look he sent between her and the stone. "Why do you think so?"

"It's a Force-sensitive river stone from Asha-Dir. It used to be Anakin's. He carried it everywhere, but he gave it to me when I turned fifteen. That must be why what I sensed seemed familiar. I'd recognize its signature anywhere."

"Ah," he said. "So what does its presence here mean?"

In the real universe, the stone was in her room at the Temple. She had carried it with her for most of the first year of her apprenticeship, until she'd almost lost it during a battle and decided to keep it somewhere safer. Ahsoka shrugged, gesturing to the second object. "What about this? Mean anything to you?"

As if reluctant, Master Kenobi took a single step toward her. "Well, I suspect we both know what it _is_. As to its meaning, though, I admit I have no idea."

She frowned down at the thing. It was a youngling's exercise known as the Box of Five Challenges, easily recognizable to any Jedi. It was always the first lesson in Advanced Force Manipulation, a required class for the older initiates. The box's twelve outer faces were made of transparent cast-plast, so that students could see the small, black cube inside at the center. Set into one wall of the cube was a tiny lock. The key in it was connected to an open circuit.

A Jedi initiate walking into Advanced Force Manipulation would immediately recognize the five puzzles inside the box that had to be completed in order to complete the circuit, turn the key, and release whatever was inside the cube. One was actually a maze, Ahsoka remembered, looking at the box. The initiates had to use the Force to maneuver a ball through a narrow maze without touching the sides of it. At that age, it was a pretty decent precision challenge.

No Jedi would ever spoil the secret of the Box of Five Challenges to an uninitiated youngling. The moment of open-mouthed outrage when the quickest student in class completed all five puzzles first, and the key turned, and instead of opening... the cube _locked_? It was practically a rite of passage. The other students would stare, uncomprehending, until one of them finally got it.

The center cube had been unlocked the whole time.

Simply picking the twelve-faced prism up and turning it upside-down made the side with the key fall open. The puzzles were irrelevant.

"Welcome to Advanced Force Manipulation," Master Fy-Tor-Ana had said to Ahsoka's class. "You are in this class because you have shown skill in the third and most difficult Force discipline. This is your first lesson. A skill is worse than useless without the wisdom to know when to apply it."

"But this is _Force_ Manipulation," a Zabrak boy named Jaylen had complained. "Of course we'd assume this was a Force exercise."

"Congratulations. You've just been manipulated," Master Ana had deadpanned.

Ahsoka had been far too embarrassed to say anything. She had been the quickest student, the one everyone else had watched as she cleverly locked herself out of the box.

Why the Box of Five Challenges would turn up here, Ahsoka didn't know. Since the river stone had clearly been put here for her, Ahsoka guessed that the box was supposed to mean something to Master Kenobi. It didn't seem to, though, or at least he didn't seem inclined to say so, if it did.

"It's supposed to teach us to keep an open mind," said Ahsoka thoughtfully. "To not jump to conclusions."

"That not everything is as it seems."

Well, that had sounded ominous. Ahsoka eyed Master Kenobi. "One of the five puzzles is a maze."

"Yes," he said, in a tone that said he'd already thought of that.

But what could it mean? To solve the Box of Five Challenges, you had to treat the maze as a red herring and ignore it, but they didn't have that option in their own maze. The connection had to be less literal.

Master Kenobi crouched down beside the two objects. Casting one last, searching look at their surroundings, he lifted his hand and let it hover over the box. "Well, I don't think we're meant to just stand here and stare at them."

The moment his hand touched the box, he vanished.

Ahsoka sighed. The Box of Five Challenges was gone too, leaving her alone in space with these weird glowing letters and a single stone. She did check, with her hands and the Force, just to make sure he had actually gone somewhere else and not merely become invisible. There was no sign of him, and only one thing to do about it.

As she leaned down to pick up the river stone, Ahsoka decided that she had definitely been wrong. Master Kenobi wasn't that different from Anakin after all.


	3. Visions

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

**REC: tallisibeth_enwandungesterhazy (222S249917)**

[ 15:3:27 03:38 ]

hey Scout, how are my plants?

* * *

**SEN: ****tallisibeth_enwandungesterhazy ****(222S249917)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

[ 15:3:27 06:48 ]

They're fine? Aren't you supposed to be in some big important battle?

* * *

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

**REC: ****tallisibeth_enwandungesterhazy ****(222S249917)**

[ 15:3:27 09:13 ]

can neither confirm nor deny, but even IF i was, i can multitask. are you in a position to accept a vital secret mission.

* * *

**SEN: ****tallisibeth_enwandungesterhazy ****(222S249917)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

[ 15:3:27 09:20 ]

Sure.

* * *

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101) **

**REC: ****tallisibeth_enwandungesterhazy ****(222S249917)**

[ 15:3:27 18:51 ]

great. tell no one.

[ NCRYPT_z_ .txt ]

* * *

The stone felt like home, warm in Ahsoka's palm.

If she hadn't known better, she would have sworn she was holding the river stone itself, not just some apparition of it created by this crazy planet. It felt like a tiny burst of golden light, like stubborn determination, like a deep breath before jumping. And it felt like Anakin.

When she straightened up, Ahsoka closed her hand around the stone and found herself in a different place.

She was still held strangely apart, on a raised platform in a circular room. A harsh, white light was centered directly on her, and she blinked at the glare; the rest of the room was dimly lit and the spotlight made it hard to see beyond a few feet. She wanted to turn and look down, but when she tried, nothing happened.

No matter how much she tried to turn her head, Ahsoka kept gazing upward, as if in supplication. After a moment of blinding panic, she tried to speak, to step forward, and found that she was as much in control now as she had been landing the _Twilight_. She still held Anakin's river stone, but couldn't so much as tighten her fist around it. A prisoner in her own body, she could only ride along helplessly, like a ghost looking over her own shoulder.

Above, where she had raised her gaze, were small balcony boxes set into the wall. Ahsoka didn't recognize the room, but Jedi Masters surveyed her from the balconies. They surrounded her, and she knew that they were gathered in some kind of judgment. Lit forbiddingly from below by the holoconsoles in front of them, Ki-Adi Mundi and Master Yoda stared down at her. She saw Plo Koon out of the corner of her eye and thought that, though whatever was happening seemed serious, it couldn't be too bad if Master Plo was there.

"Padawan Tano, serious charges have been levied against you. How plead you?"

As if from a distance, Ahsoka recognized her other self's emotions. She was dismayed and afraid, but not shocked. She had known this was coming. She heard herself say passionately, "Not guilty, Master. I would _never_ take the lives of innocents. The values of the Jedi are sacred to me!"

She had thought that perhaps she was being knighted. It seemed that nothing could be further from the truth. What _charges_?

"There is evidence to the contrary," said Ki-Adi Mundi. "You were alone with Letta Turmond when she died. Can you explain this?"

Master Mundi seemed worried, even subdued, but his tone was hopeful. Master Yoda, though, looked down at her like she was a stranger. Yoda's strange humor, his thoughtfulness, even his disappointment were familiar to Ahsoka, but she had never been regarded like this — formally, like someone he didn't even know. Desperately, she wanted to turn to Master Plo — surely _he_ would never look at her like that? — but her present self kept her eyes fixed on Master Mundi.

"Someone used the Force against her."

"Which brings us to Ventress."

It was Master Plo who spoke. Finally, Ahsoka could look at him, but she saw only an impenetrable wall of reserve. Master Plo was always like that, to an extent, but she would _know_— if he wanted her to know that he sympathized, that he was with her, she would feel it. She always had.

"Can you explain your association with her?" he demanded, like he already knew there was no possible explanation.

Ahsoka felt as if a door had closed in her heart. She had begun to worry that maybe she _was_ guilty of whatever she was accused of, but her other self burned with betrayal and frustration. There was no guilt there. She heard her own voice quicken, explanations becoming increasingly frantic as she struggled to make the masters hear her.

What she was being tried for never really made sense, but Ahsoka could see with perfect clarity that there was only one possible outcome. Her other self sensed it too, and that familiar feeling of being trapped, hemmed in and hunted, crawled between her shoulder blades.

"Clouded by the Dark Side, these things are. Dangerously clouded," said Yoda. "But not just surrounding you. Surrounding many things, in these times."

It changed nothing. Ahsoka was encircled not by friends, the people she had thought of as respected teachers and even parents, but by enemies. They didn't listen. Or maybe they did, and they just didn't care.

"It is the Council's opinion that Padawan Ahsoka Tano has committed sedition against the Republic, and thus she will be expelled from the Jedi Order."

Ahsoka could hear Anakin shouting somewhere nearby, and the unexpected comfort of it was like an electric shock. She hadn't thought, really, that he would be against her too, but to know that he would fight them for her? Oh, Anakin.

Her spotlight winked out, drenching her in darkness, and her platform began to sink down. The voice from above went on and on.

"Your padawan status will be stripped from you, and you shall forfeit all rank and privileges in the Grand Army of the Republic. You will be turned over to the Republic courts to await your trial, and whatever punishment they set for you."

One moment, she thought it was Master Plo speaking, but then it sounded like Ki-Adi. The platform kept falling, further from the lights above, so far that it seemed she was dropping far beneath the Temple. She was plummeting miles through an infinite silo, to be buried alive in darkness and forgotten. A tiny pinprick above her was the only thing she could see of the trial chamber she had come from now and, as Ahsoka craned her neck, she found she could move at will again.

Ahsoka squeezed the river stone tight in her hand, as the final words of her sentence rang around her.

"Henceforth, you are barred from the Jedi Order."

The last, weak thread of light disappeared. The platform vanished from beneath Ahsoka's feet, and she fell.

xxx

"Ahsoka? _Ahsoka_?"

She expected Anakin. She _wanted_ Anakin, but it wasn't Anakin's voice.

Ahsoka sat up suddenly, gasping for breath as if she'd nearly drowned, and found that it was Master Kenobi crouching over her. She was lying on smooth, glowing stone in a stupid maze hallway. No outer space portal. No strange, terrible trial.

No one had betrayed her. The masters would never do something like that — right? It was just this place, trying to get under her skin.

"Force," she said, hearing the unsteadiness in her own voice, "I never thought I'd be relieved to be back _here_."

When she moved, Master Kenobi had instantly retreated from her space. He stood up, shaking his head. "I have to agree. I did get a souvenir, though."

His voice was bright, like before, but this time Ahsoka could hear the way the brightness was painted over something else. Maybe she was getting used to him, or maybe it was just that much more obvious. He held out the Box of Five Challenges for her to look at, and Ahsoka turned her hand over. She still had Anakin's river stone.

"Me too."

Climbing to her feet, Ahsoka felt as if she'd somehow aged years since walking through that empty doorway. She'd known it was a bad idea.

"The door is gone," he pointed out.

Just a few feet away, there was a flat, featureless wall where the doorway had been. The passage had become a dead end, and there was nowhere to go but back the way they had come.

"Good riddance," Ahsoka said. Kriff that doorway.

She put the stone in one of her utility belt pockets, taking the box too when he offered it since his belt was just an ordinary one, and started back to where the path forked. Recognizing the tightness in her muscles and the heated energy surging through her as anger, she was silent as she marched. Anger, but why? The vision wasn't real.

No, but this maze was, Ahsoka realized. Someone was toying with them, and she wasn't having fun anymore.

Stopping at the fork, she took a deep breath. Master Kenobi was a few steps behind her, frowning to himself. It was a minute before he seemed to even notice that they had stopped. "What?"

"What?" she said back.

The crease between his eyebrows deepened. "Something is wrong."

A chill went skittering down Ahsoka's spine. A Jedi Master's intuition was not something to take lightly. "What? Where?"

"I'm not sure." He tilted his head slightly. "Something about this is strange."

Okay... maybe not so significant after all. "You _think_?"

His eyes focused on her suddenly, and she blinked. "More than one thing, obviously. You don't sense it?"

She shrugged.

"Ah well. Are we picking another route?"

Ahsoka eyed him, certain that he had not dismissed whatever it was so easily, but pointed at the passage directly across from them. "Guess so. How's this?"

He agreed, and they forged onward. The darkness was just as cloying as before, but this time Ahsoka wasn't unsettled. She was angry. This place was jerking them around, and she was fed up with the role of helpless victim. Someone had to be out there, and she was ready to take the fight to them.

As she strode ahead, she didn't stop for the next fork in the road, or the next. Master Kenobi kept pace with her, and said nothing. He was turned inward, his thoughts opaque even as the Force gathered around him, refracting and diffusing like a corona around a moon on a cloudy night. He had seen something too, but something different, Ahsoka was sure.

"This place wants to divide us," realized Ahsoka.

"Perhaps."

He sounded as if he barely heard her, but to Ahsoka the conviction rang with truth. It wanted to sow doubt and division, like the way the Separatists were always trying to undermine the Republic's war effort with slanderous propaganda. Well, she wouldn't fall for it.

The next crossroad loomed, but this time Ahsoka slowed her steps. To the right and the left forks, the glowing stripe of the path stretched on as usual, but the path straight ahead was interrupted. She could see it continue in the distance, but a few steps beyond the crossroad, the light from the stones vanished. Some kind of chasm had swallowed the road ahead. What could have such an effect on a place like this? It was probably another trick.

"We're not meant to go that way, apparently," said Ahsoka, pausing. A break in the path was at least something they hadn't yet seen.

Master Kenobi said nothing. He took a step to the side, and then a step back.

"Show yourself," he commanded, his tone sharp with an authority Ahsoka hadn't heard from him before. She straightened on instinct, shoulders squaring. She didn't understand.

Then eyes opened in the darkness, and suddenly, she did.

The light wasn't gone because something had shattered the glowing brick and broken the path. The path was there, but its light was occluded by the presence, someone or something, that stood blocking the way forward. Two eyes, burning gold with almost no pupil, regarded them dispassionately from the darkness. They were not the eyes of a thinking being — animal eyes, Ahsoka would have said, except that now she could sense it. As if a curtain had been pulled away, revealing what had been hidden, a heavy miasma of malevolence filled the Force around them like smoke.

Ahsoka's lightsabers were in her hands, and she shifted her stance slightly, centering herself. She had encountered this before, and was coming to know it quite well: hatred, pure and corrosive.

"Sith," she said, both challenge and accusation.

The burning gaze did not blink or waver.

Master Kenobi took a step forward. "Who are you?"

Ahsoka jumped to shadow him. She wished he would remember that he was unarmed. Didn't he feel the Dark Side pressing down on them?

When the creature didn't move, Master Kenobi took another step, and another. He was fully in the crossroads now, and if he advanced any more would be almost within reach of — whatever it was. Ahsoka kept her shoto in reverse grip, guarding her flank, but her 'saber in standard grip in her forehand.

"Will you let us pass?"

She felt it before she saw it. Ahsoka had heard some Jedi describe the Force's warning as a shout, but to her it had always seemed more like a zap of electricity, her muscles moving without thought. She had already leaped forward as the unmistakable sound of a lightsaber igniting cut through the air. A red blade flashed down, and she blocked it with both of hers. Still, even face-to-face with the thing, Ahsoka couldn't make out a single feature except darkness under a hooded cloak, and its yellow, yellow eyes.

It slashed at her again, but it was slow. She didn't bother blocking, rolling with the attack instead, somersaulting over its 'saber and aiming a flurry of cuts at its side and extended shoulder. It blocked, but didn't advance. Pausing, Ahsoka waited with her guard up, a little unnerved by the fact that it still hadn't made any noise. She could sense Master Kenobi behind and to the left, which was good. At least he knew how to get out of the way.

When it struck again, Ahsoka blocked and counterattacked, but this time it was much faster. Adrenaline pounded in her blood as she exchanged lightning-fast parries with the creature. Its strikes were powerful too, more so than anything that quick should be; she dodged and leaped, trying to use her double blades and agility to full advantage.

The terrain wasn't good. With a wide open space, Ahsoka could have used her dynamic footwork to outmaneuver the thing, but here they were hemmed in. She went for an under-guard strike, but it turned too quickly and caught her nearly at the edge of one of the paths. She couldn't let it push her further back, or she'd be trapped in an even tighter space with it between her and Master Kenobi. Instinctively, she leapt for the wall beside her, jumping off it and springing. She tucked into a flip over its head and landed back in the crossroad square.

Ahsoka panted, mind racing as she tried to see a way out of this. The Force was as still as always — all she could feel was the thing's deep hatred, oozing from it as it advanced on her. Shadow seemed to cling to it, so even when it was out in the open, it was impossible to see anything but its black shape.

The panic of that near-escape had her unbalanced, and she took a breath, shifting her stance. The thing spun its saber, burning eyes narrowing as it pulled back for a wide strike. Ahsoka reached out for the Force and grounded herself, exhaling the nerves and waiting in an easy crouch for the attack she knew was coming.

It didn't come.

The Force rose up like a tide, swift and unstoppable. Light burst in a rushing geyser over the creature, and it froze. Ahsoka leapt away, but then a second passed, and another, and the thing didn't move. Its lightsaber was still pulled back, and its eyes became barely-visible slits.

Taking another step back, Ahsoka stood beside Master Kenobi. He had one hand raised toward the thing, holding it in place, and absolutely _blazed_ in the Force. The thing focused on him now, and Ahsoka could feel its surging power as it tried to break the hold. Master Kenobi quenched its attempts without apparent effort, and turned his palm toward the sky.

The thing lifted a few feet into the air and hung there for a moment. Then, Master Kenobi slammed it into the wall as hard as he could.

Ahsoka winced. It made a sort of dull thudding noise, and fell into a heap that looked more like discarded laundry than anything.

"Ahsoka, if you wouldn't mind?" Master Kenobi approached the disorganized pile with an air of distaste.

She jumped after him, overtaking him in case the thing wasn't dead, and stood looking down at it. Still no recognizable features. Maybe it wasn't a person at all? But if it was, should she kill it when it was defenseless? If it was a person, it was definitely some kind of Sith, though. Pondering it, she ignited her 'saber.

It wasn't dead.

Before she could decide one way or another, the thing reformed. One second it was just a bunch of rags lying there, and the next it had lifted, as if carried by a nonexistent wind, and stood again in the mouth of the path just across from them. Ahsoka brandished her 'sabers and Master Kenobi shouted in warning, but the creature only made a sound like a hiss and turned and vanished into the darkness.

Blankly, Ahsoka looked at Master Kenobi.

Had they scared it off? That didn't seem right.

"Well," she said, extinguishing her 'sabers. "That was more than moving a water bottle."

He shrugged, slightly sheepish, the motion a dramatic contrast to the pillar of light he had become in the Force. He was a single, steady glow instead of a raging bonfire, but definitely as bright or brighter than she had ever seen Anakin. "It's easier, here. Don't you feel it?"

"Not really. It still just feels... quiet. What _was_ that thing, anyway?"

"I don't know."

"Didn't look like any Sith I ever saw."

Master Kenobi eyed her quizzically. "How many have you seen?"

Remembering who she was talking to, Ahsoka felt her colors brighten in embarrassment. "Just the one, I guess. But wasn't it... strange? With the eyes, and the—" She waved her hands vaguely to encompass the way it had seemed to have no real form.

"Very. But a good sign, I think."

"Yes," said Ahsoka. You couldn't fight glowing rocks and unsettling visions. She would take cloaked creatures with lightsabers any day. Those, at least, she knew how to handle. "We have to go after it."

"I'm not so sure. It didn't _need_ to flee. Maybe it wants us to follow. We might benefit from some circumspection."

Ahsoka stared at him. _He_ was the one who had walked blindly through the door, and picked up the mysterious object before having a clue what would happen! Now he wanted circumspection?

"What?"

She told him what she was thinking, and he laughed briefly.

"Ah, yes. Anakin used to call that the 'it's okay when I do it, but not when you do it' rule. You may be right. I—"

They both stopped. As one, they turned back toward the crossroad square. A tremor in the Force, small but standing out clearly against the tranquil background. They had almost run into the previous spectre before sensing it, but this was a warning no one could possibly miss. The creeping tendrils of malice polluting the Force like noxious fumes spelled danger so obviously that, for a moment, Master Kenobi's words loomed large in Ahsoka's mind.

They didn't have much time for circumspection, though.

When three cloaked figures just like the first stepped, lightsabers raised, from the three paths opposite them, Ahsoka wasn't surprised. She felt a pulse from Master Kenobi — he had checked behind them, and the fourth path was clear for now. In the space of a second she glanced over, shared a look with him, and knew what to do.

Instinct told her that she couldn't expect these things to start out slow like the first one. She charged at the one on the left, and was ready for its blinding speed. Playing defensive for a few exchanges, she took the first opening she saw and leaped over its head.

Ahsoka landed just as she felt Master Kenobi reach out and seize the creature in a ruthless compression of the Force. She spun around and sliced neatly through its chest in a single movement. Their timing was perfect, and Ahsoka was suddenly very glad they had played that improvised game aboard the _Twilight_.

With a pained hiss, the thing evaporated into a cloud of dingy smoke that made Ahsoka cough. One down, but she didn't have time to celebrate. Two more were closing in on Master Kenobi, and she leaped into the fray. Both at once were a challenge to keep off, and they seemed to have learned quickly. She could feel the psychic assault they had started on Master Kenobi like a roiling storm all around her.

Narrowly avoiding losing one of her lekku to a crimson 'saber, Ahsoka gave ground. "Can you grab one?"

"No," said Master Kenobi thickly. He burned like a candle, but the Force surrounding them continued to darken.

"Then I think we better go."

"On your mark."

Baring her teeth in a snarl, Ahsoka resumed her attack viciously. She beat both shadows back in a fury, and then sprang away from them, into the mouth of the path behind them.

Simultaneously, they turned and ran.

The corridor was narrow, a dangerous place to be caught in a fight, but they put on a burst of Force-aided speed and the things faded into the distance. Still, after a few minutes, it became clear that they were following. "We have to find someplace where we can make a stand," called Ahsoka. "Here, take this!"

She thrust her 'saber hilt at him, but Master Kenobi shook his head as he ran.

"You're unarmed!" she insisted.

With a barely-there grin, he said, "A Jedi is never unarmed."

"Yes, I know. Take it anyway!"

"I haven't touched a lightsaber in more than a year. I would far rather the one better prepared to wield it be in possession of our only weapon."

Ahsoka grunted in frustration. "Do we _have_ to argue about this?"

"No," he said, hardly out of breath for a man who had been in and out of several different medbays recently. "You will keep the lightsaber, Padawan."

That was playing dirty. Fine. Ahsoka switched hilts, and thrust the other one at him. He aimed a narrow-eyed glance at her as they ran, but took it. She was glad she won that one, because as soon as they hit another crossroad, they were attacked again.

Ahsoka didn't bother to count the mysterious cloaked things this time. She just reacted. Master Kenobi was at her shoulder, and the Force surged between them in a whirlpool of action and reaction. Ahsoka attacked and defended, her single 'saber a blur; submerged in the Force, every move was another note in a melody she knew instinctively. Master Kenobi used her shoto for defense and the Force for offense, fighting with such a single-minded focus that he gave no ground, despite the disadvantage of his much-shorter weapon.

Together, they destroyed three or four of the creatures, each one dissolving into fumes that left black, sooty smudges on Ahsoka's tunic and gloves. Leaping after a shift in the Force, Ahsoka beat back several more, and then her own shoto came spinning over her head. It sliced in a yellow blur through the hoods of the things looming on either side of her, passing over her montrals by inches. Surprised, she glanced back in time to see Master Kenobi snatch it out of the air. He ran towards her, and the opening flared around them like a silent shout.

Breaking through the ranks of shadows, they made it to the opening of another path and sprinted headlong. Ahsoka sensed that they were being followed, but the time for pondering strategy was past. Now there was nothing but the Force, and the fight.

There were more crossroads, and more creatures after that. Sometimes, they wielded different lightsabers; a few dual-wielded, and Ahsoka saw a 'saberstaff and even some crazy contraption like a spinning wheel with two lightsaber blades affixed to it. All of the shadows had the same glowing, animal eyes, and none of them ever spoke.

Fighting with Master Kenobi was easy. Soresu in the field was familiar to Ahsoka from fighting alongside Luminara and Barriss, but whatever he was doing certainly wasn't _traditional_ Soresu. Perhaps he was adapting to the shoto's weaknesses, but he almost seemed to use the 'saber as a tertiary tool, relying mostly on footwork and the Force. She might have been worried a few times, watching him flip sideways over a horizontal strike or barely sidestep, except that she was busy doing the same.

The Force sang so strongly that there was no room for doubt; Master Kenobi's actions were her actions, and they anticipated each other as if they had worked together for months instead of just hours. Fighting their way past each crossroads, they continued their headlong dash. They could have defeated the creatures and won at a few of them, Ahsoka was sure, but the urge to keep going, to not stop for anything, spurred her onward.

_If we can just make it there..._ she thought, not able to finish the idea or even guess where "there" was.

Ahsoka knew it when she saw it, though.

They were panting and covered in sweat by now, and when she saw the glimmer of light up ahead, she first assumed it was yet another courtyard. Readjusting her grip on her 'saber, she readied to continue the fight.

"Is that—?"

Looking again, Ahsoka felt her stomach sink. "Yeah," she said grimly.

They weren't approaching another courtyard. They were approaching another _doorway_, glowing with sigils set in intricate patterns around its empty mouth, just like the last one. This passage was a dead end, with no other way forward.

She glanced sideways at Master Kenobi, and felt his thoughts fall into place with hers. They didn't slow. Her feet pounding on the stones, Ahsoka tensed and took a breath as if about to dive into deep water.

_Don't let this be another vision_.

At the last second, they leaped, plummeting together into nothingness.

Ahsoka landed in a crouch, in a pool of absolute tranquility. More glowing stone was beneath her, and she stood up warily. Master Kenobi rose to his feet beside her, and for once, nothing attacked them.

They were in an empty courtyard, perfectly circular, with a kind of prominence set near the center — a decorative sculpture, or fountain or something. Dark ridges ran across the floor like cracks in glass, loops and lines that looked like they formed some sort of pattern. It wasn't a large space, probably only the size of the padawan training salle, but the roof curved over them, a dome half-hidden in shadow. There was nowhere to indicate where they might have come from, no door or opening visible anywhere, but there was an elevated terrace balcony that circled the whole courtyard, like viewing boxes at the theater.

The Force was completely, utterly still. Ahsoka wasn't sure if it was the same stillness as before, only contrasted by the recent intensity of battle, or if it was something deeper. She felt like an intruder. In the tranquility, even the small ripples caused by her and Master Kenobi's presence seemed like an impolite disturbance.

Walking a little ways aimlessly, Ahsoka ended up beneath the part of the balcony closest to where they had landed. She jumped, gripping the stone balustrade and pulling herself up and over. Up here it was dark, the glow from the floor below mostly blocked. Ahsoka made her way along the balcony, exploring and halfway hoping to find any sort of way out.

Every few yards there was a door set into the wall. Not a real door, as Ahsoka discovered the first time, but just a doorway that led nowhere. It was hard to see in the shadow, but she could reach past the stone frame and feel the solid wall that blocked it up. Were they just artistic additions? Or had they led somewhere at one point, and then been bricked closed?

She had circumnavigated half the room when, glancing out to see what Master Kenobi was doing, she noticed something that made her stop in her tracks. Ahsoka leaned out over the balustrade to get a clearer view, but it was unmistakable. The dark lines that she had noticed running along the floor _were _creating a pattern or, more accurately, a portrait.

Concentric circles ringed the floor, but far from being abstract, from this view she could see that there were three sets of circles, each set framing the head and shoulders of a figure. In the middle was the Father, all long, sharp angles with a grave frown on his face. His hand was upraised, as if to take an oath, and the platform in the middle of the room was placed to look as if he held it in his palm. To his right was the Son, drawn on a slightly smaller scale, and the Daughter on his left. Etched in darkness against the luminous floor, they looked just as otherworldly as Ahsoka remembered them.

"Hey," she called, deliberately loudly. So what if they were drawn on the floor? So what if the Force was quiet? This place could use a little livening up. "Come take a look at this."

Master Kenobi had gone to examine whatever was on the platform, but quickly came over and jumped up to join Ahsoka on the balcony.

"Look. These are the beings we met last time. They called themselves Father, Daughter, and Son," she said, pointing as she named each one.

"Interesting. I've never seen anything like that before. It's very difficult to make out from the ground."

"Yeah. We were told the Council was going to have some of the Lore Keepers look into it, but I never heard if they finished a report or anything." They had been off again almost immediately, to the next urgent mission.

"You said they were dead?"

Ahsoka shrugged. "It seemed that way, but, you know. It also kind of looked like the planet was destroying itself when we left, and clearly it didn't."

"You said it looks different now, though," said Master Kenobi. "Maybe it _was_ destroyed, in the form that you saw it."

"That's what I mean. It's impossible to tell what's actually going on."

He looked thoughtful. "Did they have a reason for bringing you here the first time?"

"Oh, it was definitely about Anakin. They wanted to test him, to know whether he's the Chosen One."

Master Kenobi had gone very still. "And what did they conclude?"

"He is." Ahsoka didn't see why they had needed to stage some elaborate metaphysical contest to discover what every youngling in the Order already knew. "The Father wanted something from him, but I don't know what it was."

"Did he get it?"

"No," said Ahsoka. Curiously, she looked up at Master Kenobi, certain that he knew something he wasn't saying. He was only frowning, though, maybe to himself or maybe down at the mural.

He turned to her, and she could feel that he was deadly serious, even if he tried not to show it when he spoke. "You also said something about falling to the Dark Side?"

"Yes. I was poisoned. I don't know what happened to Anakin, but I assume the same thing."

"_Poisoned_?"

"That's what I said." Pricked by his skepticism, Ahsoka barely kept her tone on the right side of respectful. "The Son kidnapped me and poisoned me. I fought Anakin... I wanted to kill him. But he saved me. We never talked about it, but it was after Anakin went to see the Son by himself that he came back... changed... so I figured it was the same."

"That sounds like a very unsettling experience," he said gently.

Ahsoka knew her shrug was too stiff. "They're dead."

Leaning over the edge of the balcony, Master Kenobi said, "Which just leaves us, here."

"All these doors, all closed." Ahsoka gestured around them, and he nodded. "I guess, having come this far, there's no way back."

"There has to be a way _forward_," said Master Kenobi. "I'm sure we're here for a reason, and unless I am much mistaken, that artefact in the middle of the room has something to do with it. Come look."

He leapt down easily, and Ahsoka followed.

It wasn't a sculpture that sat on the platform. As they approached, she could see that it was a small, raised circular dias of plain black stone. A second, smaller platform was raised on top of it, this one with a strange, jagged shape. It was almost a star, but ragged and uneven, and into each of its extended points was set a piece of crystal. In the center of that was a third level, circular again and the smallest of all.

Ahsoka hardly noticed the other crystals, because the piece set into the third tier was so beautiful. It was raw and uncut, like someone had simply found it in a cave and placed it on the top of the platform, but its base was set into the dark rock as if it had grown there. Its pale light was filmy and gave the sense of movement, like the depths of the ocean. At first it seemed to glow pure white, but the closer Ahsoka stared, though, the more the light dimmed. She saw heavy, dark streaks within it, and marbled threads of indistinct color that seemed to pulse with an uneasy energy.

Trying to sense it in the Force, Ahsoka found that it seemed to have no presence at all. All she could feel was the calm pool of the Force that surrounded them, and yet for some reason she was sure that the crystal was more than just a pretty piece of rock. She had stepped onto the first level of the platform and was reaching out for it when Master Kenobi warned, "I wouldn't touch that, if I were you."

Ahsoka looked at him, and touched it anyway.

The crystal _screamed_.

Pain split Ahsoka's skull as the crystal's agony lanced through her like red-hot lightning. She had stepped into a storm and millions of voices surrounded her, howling in rage and fear. For a moment she was suspended there, trapped, and then she felt warm fingers prying her hand away.

Ahsoka staggered, almost falling into Master Kenobi as she found herself dunked once again into the silence of the courtyard. She trembled slightly, finding her feet. "Okay, you were right."

"I only knew because I touched it first," he admitted with a half-shrug.

"Why is it screaming? Can we help it?" She didn't know why that had been her first thought, but it felt right.

Master Kenobi looked at her. "I don't know."

Stepping up to the second tier of the platform, he scuffed his boot over one of the other crystals. These were flat and smooth, set into the rock like porthole windows, but all Ahsoka could see through them was an uneasy, colorless churning. She didn't know what effect touching them might have, but she didn't feel inclined to find out.

Ahsoka spun in an even circle. There was nothing else here, no secret trapdoor that she had missed, and the Force was still silent. "We're trapped. What else is there to do?" The crystal was drawn as cradled in the Father's palm; it had to be the key to _something_.

Still contemplating one of the porthole crystals, Master Kenobi said absently, "Can you be trapped if you're not trying to go anywhere?"

Ahsoka wasn't in the mood for thought puzzles and, regardless, the answer was yes.

"I am trying to go somewhere," she said. "_Out_."

He looked up, catching her impatience. His eyes held the unmistakable light of an idea, but a cold prickle rose on the back of Ahsoka's neck, and a blast of danger flared through the Force seconds later. Whatever Master Kenobi had been about to say immediately became a distant second or third priority.

In the shadow of the balcony nearest them, something had begun to move. It was hard to see, but not hard at all to sense. Ahsoka caught the glint of dull, golden eyes.

"Ah, they're coming through," observed Master Kenobi. "Figure this out later?"

"Sure. Coming through _what_?"

"The doors, I suppose. They're probably only closed on one side."

That didn't make any sense, but then again it didn't have to.

A sharp trickle of poisoned hate had pierced the clear pool of the Force, and soon it widened into a rushing torrent as more and more shadows gathered. The courtyard suddenly took on a different aspect. It was a kill box, Ahsoka saw now. They had always been meant to come here, where they could be trapped and overwhelmed.

_How do you escape an inescapable room?_

"I'm sick of this," Ahsoka said, igniting her 'saber.

Master Kenobi took a long, silent breath beside her. She could feel him accessing the Force — almost see it, as he lit up like a bonfire. "I think they've got the right idea, staying on the balcony," he said, looking down at her with a single raised eyebrow.

It was a question, and Ahsoka nodded once.

Jumping into action, they each made for opposite sides of the room. If they could keep the shadows on the balcony, they could force the fight to stay in narrow confines. Despite their ever-growing numbers, the creatures would be forced to face them almost one-on-one, evening the odds. Ahsoka leaped, climbing and rolling over the balustrade onto her feet, and charged into the boiling mass of darkness.

She could feel Master Kenobi on the opposite side of the balcony doing the same. He was a blazing burst of the Force, and she concentrated on fighting her way toward him. The creatures in front of her were impossible to distinguish, blending together in the Force and in the dim lighting. But there was only room for one lightsaber at a time, and that was all that mattered to Ahsoka. Sinking deep into the Force, she let everything go but the awareness that flowed through her body, moving it in time with the beat of the universe.

Ahsoka had fought some hard battles in the past, but this, she thought, wasn't one of them.

There were no clones to protect or watch die, no soul-crushing cost-benefit analyses to be weighed. The creatures attacked viciously, but either they were slowing or they were crippled by the cramped space; it seemed simpler to cut them down here than it had in the maze. Ahsoka didn't want to die, but fighting had always been easy. It was leading others into danger that was hard. How Anakin did it without letting it crush him, she didn't know.

Ahsoka had no room to maneuver, so she leaned on her Djem So and never let up the attack. Countless glowing eyes peered out at her, but the things had to essentially stand in line to get to her. She destroyed one after the other, the Force filling her and pushing her fatigue far away. Eventually, she would feel it, but for now the urgency of battle was her only reality.

Time passed. Ahsoka didn't know how much, but she found that suddenly, she could see Master Kenobi. The flash of her shoto caught her attention further along the balcony, and for a moment she was elated. The ranks of the creatures were thinning! There were only a few more yards between him and her, and then they would be able to stop the flow at the door.

Then, coughing through the fumes of dying shadows, she saw something else.

Instantly, Ahsoka broadcasted a pulse of warning into the Force. Checking over her shoulder as she defended herself from the front only confirmed her fears. Behind her, the shadows had begun to seethe. The Force whispered of darkness seeping through all around, and she gritted her teeth. They had started using all the doors, not just a few. Maybe this had been their plan all along, to lure them in and take them by surprise.

Or, Ahsoka thought as she dropped low and sliced through the cloak of the next creature in line, maybe they need a plan at all. There seemed to be an infinite supply of them, and they didn't seem to mind dying.

She waited until a lightsaber ignited behind her. Then, she leaped headlong off the balcony, rolling to her feet and taking a defensive position with her back to the crystal podium. Master Kenobi was already there and shadows had begun spilling down to the courtyard from his part of the balcony. Still, looking at him, she had to grin. His face and hands were smudged with so much gray soot that it looked like he'd just dug his way out of an ash heap.

Briefly, he smiled at her amusement, cocking his head in challenge. "Anakin's choice of tunic color has a purpose after all."

Ahsoka glanced down at herself and had to admit he had a point. Everything she wore showed the smoke-stain far worse than Anakin's dark gray. "I'm sure he picked it specifically to fight evaporating ghosts."

"No doubt. What do you say we choose a less exposed position?"

The crystal dias was not big enough to use as an obstacle, but was too big to effectively allow them to guard each other's backs. The only other choice, though, was getting their backs against a wall, and Ahsoka didn't feel great about that option. All around them, shadows dropped from the balcony, filling the courtyard like drops of ink. Their cloaks extinguished the glow of the stone floor wherever they stood, and the room fell deeper into dusk as they gathered.

They were surrounded, and the creatures just kept coming.

"Cover me," said Ahsoka.

She darted forward, engaging the thing directly in front of her. In three quick moves, she got under its guard and reduced it to smoke, but four more were on her as soon as the first fell. A sideways feint and a backflip got her out of immediate danger, ready to defend herself as soon as the whole mass attacked.

But they didn't.

Two of the creatures followed her, but only offered a few salvo attacks before they fell back again. A vague, rippling line of shadows surrounded them on all sides, yellow eyes tracking their every move with hatred. Ahsoka stepped back to the dias and let her lightsaber fall to her side.

"They're reluctant to get close to the crystal," said Master Kenobi, echoing what Ahsoka had already concluded.

Ahsoka rolled her shoulders and shook her arms out. "All right. We got this, actually."

The crystal _would_ guard their backs. They had a radius of about six or seven feet in which to move freely around the dias. What had been a promise of certain death had just transformed into nearly a fair fight.

It was harder than it had been on the balcony, but fending off three or four of the creatures was a lot better than fending off hundreds. After some trial and error, they developed systems that seemed to work well. Master Kenobi yanked a few of the things out of line for Ahsoka to pounce on and cut down, but then they learned to anticipate and resist his Force attacks. They never did seem to get the hang of being able to do it when they were currently engaged in a duel, though.

The Force let Ahsoka feel the flow of Master Kenobi's fight as well as her own, so she knew when to pull or push at one of his opponents at the right time, and he did the same for her. At one point she had pulled back to the crystal dias, coughing from the smoke that only thickened with each destroyed creature. Looking up, Ahsoka realized suddenly that there were no more shadows dropping from above.

As the things continued to fall, Ahsoka had expected the room to fill with light again, but it didn't. So many of the creatures had been destroyed that the cloud of fumes they created dimmed the glow of the stones as much as their presence had done. Still, it was grueling work, but Ahsoka felt sure they were systematically thinning the ranks.

She would be almost certain of eventual victory if Master Kenobi would stop _throwing her shoto_.

Admittedly, it was a great way to take out one or more of the creatures without having to enter their zone, and you could hardly miss when there were so many of them. She just kept waiting nervously for one of the creatures to catch it out of the air. Then they'd be in real trouble. It never seemed to happen, though. His timing was excellent, always sniping the shadow that was focused on jockeying for position or readying to attack Ahsoka.

Clenched around her lightsaber hilt, Ahsoka's hands were almost black with soot. She ranged further and further from the crystal, hunting the shadows as they increasingly chose to withdraw rather than attack.

The room was so hazy now that she found Master Kenobi by the diffracted glow of her shoto and the sound of his coughs. He had backed three of the creatures against the wall and was dispatching them one after the other.

"This place isn't getting any lighter," said Ahsoka.

Glancing upward at the ceiling, lost now in a thick, ugly layer of smoke, he nodded. "I say we finish the last of these, and then figure out how to get out of here."

It was like picking her way through a fog bank that smelled of fire and burnt the inside of her nose and throat when she breathed. Ahsoka reached out in the Force to find the elusive pockets of darkness, grimly searching them out one by one. They could have used the smoke to hide their movements and attempt surprise attacks, but they didn't, instead choosing to evade and make them work to clear the room.

Her eyes stinging, Ahsoka coughed and coughed. She tried to crouch low to stay where the fog was thinner, but there was nowhere to get away from the noxious fumes. Her whole body felt covered with a thin layer of grime. The Force got harder and harder to understand, as the smoke seemed to carry a darkness all its own that obscured everything.

Finally, she had to shut her eyes completely, and they still streamed with involuntary tears. Taking shallow breaths in a futile effort to minimize coughing, Ahsoka leaned on the Force to guide her. She found a skulking shadow against a far wall, and destroyed it with a flick of her 'saber. She thought that was the last one; she _hoped_ it was.

Ahsoka's head swam. She reached for the Force, but stumbled, her balance deserting her. She could hear Master Kenobi coughing, and made her way toward the sound. Opening her eyes was too painful now, and there was nothing to see anyway. She tried calling out, but couldn't force the words past the coughs that convulsed her.

Her foot hit something, and she fell, too dizzy to even catch herself with her hands. The edge of the second tier of the crystal dias bruised her ribs, but all she could do was cough.

"Ahsoka."

She heard Master Kenobi, sounding like his voice had been ground with glass, and then felt his hands gripping her wrists. His breathing was ragged and loud, and Ahsoka half-crawled her way to bracing herself against his side. He sat slumped against the crystal dias, and she pressed her face to his shoulder, trying to inhale the fabric of his tunic instead of air.

"Can't see," she managed to gasp.

"I know." The words were barely discernible between coughs, and his arm encircled her waist as if he wanted to shield her.

Ahsoka kept trying to get air, but it tasted like ash and felt like fire. She couldn't think, couldn't find the Force. Everything was trapped, slowing to paralysis under a suffocating layer of smoke. As she felt her consciousness begin to slip away into darkness, she knew that she had underestimated the creatures.

They did have a plan, and it was this.

xxx

The Force shuddered.

The first thing Ahsoka knew was that she was breathing, and that it was easy.

Her instincts and body firing before her brain, she jackknifed up with a gasp and found herself sitting on a metal floor. She looked at her hands, turning them over in front of her, and they were perfectly clean. Checking her tunic showed not a single smudge.

For a moment, she just breathed deeply and rejoiced at the cleanness of the Force and the sweetness of the air. Then she hollered, "ARTOO!"

Master Kenobi, lying not far away, turned over and grunted at the noise. He lifted a hand to cover his eyes, and sat up.

Artoo's warbled answer floated back to her from three rooms away. They were in the cargo hold of the _Twilight_. Ahsoka climbed to her feet and grinned, calling back, "I know, we made it out! Where are we?"

She offered a hand to Master Kenobi, who took it and allowed her to haul him up.

"Well, that was quite an experience," he said.

"I thought for sure we were goners. Did it even happen? Look, no signs of smoke." She stepped back and held her arms out to show her tunic and kit.

Master Kenobi shook his head, bemused. "Something certainly must have — otherwise why would I have this?"

He held out her shoto hilt. Ahsoka's own 'saber was clipped to her belt, as if it had never left its usual position. She took the shoto and clipped it on her other side, where it belonged.

"Did you come away with anything?"

Instantly realizing what he was talking about, she flipped open several of her utility pouches. "What in the _universe_," she said, pulling out both her river stone and the Box of Five Challenges, just as they had appeared in the maze. "This stone is supposed to be in my room at the Temple!"

"You'll have to check when we get back," he said, interested.

"Speaking of which, Artoo isn't making any sense. We should probably find out what's going on."

In the cockpit, Artoo was plugged into the main console. He shrieked as Ahsoka walked in and took the pilot's chair.

"Okay, buddy, you said we dropped out of hyperspace, but _where_?"

There were plenty of stars outside the viewport, Ahsoka was pleased to see. It looked like they were distantly passing a planet as well. Checking the navcomp, she entered Coruscant as the destination, and frowned when it returned no possible jump routes. Was it malfunctioning again?

"Is that Vandor-3?"

Master Kenobi had leaned on the back of the co-pilot's chair. The answer to his question, per Artoo, was _yes,_ and that was what he'd been trying to tell Ahsoka this whole time.

"Vandor-3?" she repeated, feeling stupid. "That's impossible. That means we're already—"

"Already nearly home," Master Kenobi said.

The navcomp wouldn't calculate for Coruscant because they were already within the Corusca sector, too close for anything but a micro-jump. Flying sublight, they would arrive in less than an hour.

"We were at _least_ two whole days away!"

Master Kenobi shrugged, but gestured at the chrono on the console. It was the same day. They had somehow traveled from Centares to Coruscant in just two days.

"Well." Ahsoka stared at the star chart for a minute, then pulled her legs up into the seat and huffed. "I guess that's the least that planet could do for us."

"Once we arrive, I'm definitely going to look up that report you mentioned."

Ahsoka probably should have done that herself, but when would she have had time? And their experience had been so different, it probably wouldn't have helped anyway. "Not me," she decided. "We won both times — that's all I care about."

He leaned his chin against the back of the seat, and she sensed a burst of something like amusement before he cut it off. Surprised, Ahsoka sat up straighter. For a second, it had felt like a bond. Discreetly probing in the Force, she found that — no. It wasn't. Of course not, really, it took a lot more than two days of travel to establish a Force bond. But something was there, maybe the foundation of one.

Did she want that?

"So, you think we won?" he asked thoughtfully, tracking the stars outside the viewport.

"We made it out, so yeah. You don't?"

"No, I don't. I think we failed. I think we were meant to understand, and we didn't."

"Well, that's definitely true." Ahsoka watched him for a long moment. "Maybe when you figure it out, we can go to Dex's and you can explain it to me."

Surprise widened Master Kenobi's eyes and made him look young. "You go to Dex's?"

It was just a restaurant. Plenty of Jedi went there, but his reaction told her that her hunch had been right. "Yeah, it's Anakin's favorite."

"You've got a deal, Padawan Tano," he said, and she grinned.

As they approached Coruscant, Ahsoka plotted their descent and hailed the planetary air traffic control channel. Out the viewport the planet was a dreadful swarming ball of light and traffic, as always; it never changed, and never would change, Ahsoka was sure. The rest of the galaxy could burn down and Coruscant would still be there putting out daily memos about new speeder fuel efficiency legislation and changing economic tax zones.

Air traffic control at first wanted to route them through one of the commercial approach vectors, but as soon as Ahsoka gave her Jedi clearance codes, the operator came back with an all-clear. Ahsoka hummed under her breath as she took manual control to pilot them down. It felt like forever since she had been home, and it was a relief to be home _free_ as well.

Who knew a simple voyage would turn into such a challenge?

"Oh," said Master Kenobi, sounding alarmed. "What's happened?"

"What?" Ahsoka scanned all her instruments, first thinking that something had gone wrong with the ship or the approach, but there was nothing. Everything was normal.

When she looked over, he was gripping the back of the seat with white knuckles, and his face had gone gray. He looked like he was seeing something terrible, a horror from a nightmare, but there was nothing. "You don't feel that?"

"No, nothing! What is it?" Ahsoka cast out in the Force wildly, but all was as it should be. Coruscant loomed large in the viewport, its molten light beginning to separate into individual streams of traffic as they flew closer.

Then Master Kenobi's shields cracked, and Ahsoka could sense _pain_.

"Something is terribly wrong," he said, strangely clearly through the hand that had covered his nose and mouth. When Ahsoka glanced back, she saw the glint of blood leaking between his fingers.

"What? What? Okay, just hold on — we're almost there."

Ahsoka gunned the engine, streaking through the Coruscanti atmosphere like a missile. Anyone else pulling a stunt like this would probably be shot out of the sky by planetary defense, but she had learned by now that with Jedi clearance codes you could get away with almost anything. As they leveled out, her gaze alternated between Master Kenobi and the viewport.

He had hung on, quite literally, clutching the seat back and lowering his forehead to brace against it, as if under a terrible pressure. Reaching out to him in the Force, Ahsoka had to recoil at the maelstrom of agony she touched. His shields were practically gone and, somehow, he was being crushed.

Still, Ahsoka felt nothing strange at all.

Navigating through the Financial District, they cleared its massive field of skyscrapers and burst out into the Legislative District. Finally. There was the Jedi Temple in the distance, its five spires visible past the Senate Complex. "Hey, there it is, okay, it's okay, we're there," she said, words spilling out in a rush before she even knew what she was saying.

Master Kenobi made a small, harsh noise, and then collapsed.

Really, it was predictable, Ahsoka thought later. She should have made him sit down as soon as he said something was wrong. But no, he swayed a little and then fell, crashing to the deck heavily. With a cry, she jumped out of her seat and hit her knees beside him.

"Artoo! Take us in to the Temple — fast as you can. And tell them we need medical assistance right away!"

Cold panic raced through Ahsoka. She turned Master Kenobi over and got his head in her lap, but when she tried to reach him in the Force it was far beyond her skill. And Force, there was blood everywhere. Even his _ears_ were bleeding. What could have caused this?

She had no idea, but she did know one thing. Anakin was going to kill her.


	4. Home

**SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983) **

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

**CC: mace_windu (975X583224)**

[ 15:3:30 12:04 ]

Report on phenomena experienced during flight to Coruscant attached.

[ tano_ahsoka_report_15_3_29. file .txt ]

* * *

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101) **

**REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

[ 15:3:30 16:19 ]

how much can go wrong on a four-day trip?! don't think that CC-ing Master Windu on this is going to help you, Snips. we both know he's way too busy to pay attention to comm traffic.

* * *

**SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

[ 15:3:30 16:25 ]

Actually, it was more like a two-day trip! We made great time.

* * *

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

**REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

[ 15:3:30 16:32 ]

yeah because you went through kriffin S

* * *

**SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

[ 15:3:30 16:35 ]

I couldn't help it! What was I supposed to do? Master Che says it's probably just psychic shock, and he'll be better in a few days.

* * *

**SEN: mace_windu (975X583224)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101) ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

[ 15:3:30 16:36 ]

Thank you for the report, Padawan Tano. These developments are concerning and the Council will likely want to consider your experiences in greater detail at a later time.

Skywalker, please refrain from discussing sensitive information on personal comms.

* * *

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

**REC: mace_windu (975X583224)**

[ 15:3:30 16:38 ]

yes master

* * *

**SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

**REC: mace_windu (975X583224)**

[ 15:3:30 16:39 ]

Of course, Master.

* * *

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

**REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

[ 15:3:30 16:42 ]

seriously, how is he?

* * *

**SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

[ 15:3:30 16:44 ]

Unconscious. I really don't think it was Mortis that did it, if that place was Mortis. The analysis the Lore Keepers handed up to the CoFK was inconclusive. We were there for hours, and Master Kenobi seemed fine, almost like being there made him stronger. I honestly think he was having fun half the time.

Even afterward he was totally normal, until we started approaching Coruscant. Then he just collapsed. It was pretty scary. I'm sorry, Master.

* * *

**SEN: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

**REC: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

[ 15:3:29 16:47 ]

not your fault, Snips. i'm sorry for text yelling, just worried. send me regular reports, ok? especially if anything changes.

* * *

**SEN: ahsoka_tano (222X472983)**

**REC: anakin_skywalker (149X212101)**

[ 15:3:29 16:48 ]

Will do.

* * *

Obi-Wan awoke, surprised that he had lost consciousness at all. Ventress had always been particular about making sure he was lucid enough to enjoy the full agony of whatever she had planned.

The thought was a tiny flicker, instantly extinguished as the darkness became all he could feel.

It was thick, oily, and alive with malice. Pouring through him in infinite waves, it stuck and hardened like permacrete. His ears, his nose, the inside of his throat — he couldn't breathe, couldn't think. There was nothing but the darkness, nothing else in the universe. He was alone. Alone because he deserved it. Alone because he failed. Obi-Wan was alone, and abandoned, and drowning.

He clawed at the mask, a mindless, animal motion, and found that there was no mask.

No mask.

Breathing in fury and rot, Obi-Wan knew that something was very wrong.

Someone held him down. He felt the pressure on his arms and shoulders, and the Force trying to crush him, and he fought. The mask was gone. That was important. He fought, desperate to get free enough to think. He could feel himself screaming, and was surprised again. He had grown tired of hearing himself scream, and in the end it had been a mercy when his raw throat lost the ability.

_Something is wrong_.

The darkness seeped through every crack, even places he had managed to forget about. He saw the Jedi Temple burning. He saw Geonosis, everyone he had called there to die, the bodies of children lying at his feet. Anakin, tall and strong and grown-up, looking at him with the distant eyes of a stranger. He stood before the Council and heard Qui-Gon sum him up in cool, indifferent words, heard Mace Windu's scathing voice say, _You are thirteen years old, Obi-Wan, not a child_.

Obi-Wan fought, but he couldn't break away. The darkness plundered him until it knew him, turning his blood to sludge and his body to stone, until it _was_ him. He was back on Jabiim, where the faces of the dead blurred. The same faces, the same deaths. He stood, aching and helpless and guilty, as Anakin screamed, _It's all your fault_. He knew it was true.

In the end, it was the firebeetles.

He was a padawan again, blind and screaming as flesh-eating beetles swarmed him. No one could hear him. No one was coming. He would die here, alone and howling in fear, a death unworthy of a Jedi.

Still, before the darkness swept everything away, Obi-Wan had gathered the shards of an idea. The mask. Ventress. The firebeetles. Amorphous and scattered, a thread of conviction greater than his own pulsed at the center of the thought.

As much as Ventress had done to him on Rattatak — this was different. She had never known about the firebeetles.

Obi-Wan broke the surface of consciousness several more times, and each time wished he hadn't. The darkness lingered. At some points he knew he was no longer in Ventress's fortress, aware enough to sense the difference and the other presences that passed nearby. Other times, he was there all over again. He fought each time; he could do nothing else, but he wasn't strong enough. There was nothing to hold on to, no one to reach out for.

His only hope was that eventually, his body would give out and he would die. That freedom was the sweetest enticement, and disappointment sharpened each time he found himself alive.

Finally, the war ended and he was left to drift in peace. Whether the darkness chose to recede or exhaustion simply overcame him, Obi-Wan didn't know, because he knew nothing at all.

xxx

Blinking, Obi-Wan found himself staring at the shadowed ceiling of the Halls of Healing.

It wasn't real, of course, but it looked impressively lifelike. There were the high, vaulted roofs and the dimly-glowing pale lamps. In his periphery, he could see the edge of one of the massive windows; in the daytime it would fill the room with golden light, but now the city glow of Coruscant took the place of stars. Turning his head, Obi-Wan watched the distant lanes of speeder traffic in their thin, colorful ropes shift and dance.

Curiously detailed, for a dream, he thought, but he wasn't going to complain. This was more peaceful than any dream he'd had in a long, long time.

"Obi-Wan?" a sleepy voice murmured.

He turned to his other side and found a thin figure curled up in a cushioned chair beside his bed. She unfolded, sitting forward, and after an alarming moment of disorientation, he recognized her. "Taria? What are _you_ doing here?"

Taria Damsin was a friend, but not someone Obi-Wan was used to meeting in his dreams. She wore soft, casual robes, like she had made this place her home for some time, and her bright hair was cut far shorter than he remembered. She frowned at him, the unfamiliar gauntness that hollowed her face only making the expression more severe.

"What does it look like? The real question is why are _you_ here."

"It's _my_ dream," said Obi-Wan, bemused.

Immediately, her expression shifted. Mostly, she was laughing at him, but there was something else there too. If this were real, he would have reached out to discreetly sound her presence in the Force for whatever troubled her. "This isn't a dream, Obi-Wan," she said. "You're really here."

Obi-Wan sighed, and turned back toward the window to watch the lights.

It was only peaceful until a pillow came down violently on his face. With a muffled yelp of outrage, he pushed it away and sat up. Or, tried to sit up. He ended up half propped on an elbow, because that was as far as he could move.

"Don't sigh at _me_, Obi-Wan Kenobi." Taria stood beside the bed now, arms crossed. The effect of her displeasure was only slightly ruined by the fact that her robe was oversized and the sleeves swallowed her hands. "I have sat here day after day watching you try as hard as you can to die for absolutely no reason. Trust me when I say that you are awake."

"Why," said Obi-Wan, "am I shackled to the bed?"

He pulled at the cuffs that bound him. They were pliable and soft with a metal clasp and secured with woven cords, but served very effectively to keep him trapped. Taria dropped her hands and reached for the holopad embedded in the wall at the head of the bed. A few taps of her finger, and the clasps unlatched with a quiet click. Obi-Wan flung them off and sat up, rubbing his wrists. They didn't hurt, but not so long ago, they had.

"So you wouldn't claw your face off." The indignation of a few moments ago had drained from Taria's voice. She sounded exhausted. When Obi-Wan didn't react, she said, "You still think this is a dream."

He looked up at her, but said nothing.

"Why are you so sure?"

"I've been to the Halls of Healing many times in my life, Taria," he said. "I know what they're supposed to feel like. I know what the Temple feels like. I know what _you_ feel like."

"Ah." She folded gingerly back into her chair.

"There's nothing of the Force here. It's not real."

"It is real." Resting her cheek on her hand as if she was too tired to keep holding her head up, Taria said, "They've got you drugged up on suppressants, Obi-Wan."

"Of course," he agreed politely.

"Think about it. If this was a dream, you wouldn't be able to remember how you got here."

"I don't."

"Not _here_," she said. "To Coruscant. Weren't you traveling to Coruscant?"

Slowly, he nodded. "With Ahsoka. And then, the Force planet. And then—"

The darkness. He had felt it on their approach, and the closer they came to Coruscant, the more overwhelming it had become. He remembered the way it had bubbled in his blood, beating down on him with pressure enough to tear him apart. He had done his best to stay standing. It must not have been enough.

Taria was watching him patiently, eyes bright in the darkness where she curled against the chair.

"Ahsoka," he said. "Is she all right? What was that presence that attacked us?"

"Ahsoka's perfectly fine. Nobody knows what it was that affected you like that."

Dropping his legs over the side of the bed, Obi-Wan sat to face her. "It must have been unbelievably powerful. I haven't sensed anything like that in— ever, really. Did Ahsoka withstand it?"

"You were the only one affected, Obi-Wan. Ahsoka didn't sense anything strange. Nobody else did."

Obi-Wan stared at her. He couldn't sense the truth in her words, but he could hear it in the way she was speaking to him slowly, as if he were a child or very sick. "That can't be right."

Taria shrugged. "You're a medical mystery."

"I need to speak to Ahsoka."

"First of all, it's three in the morning. Second, she's not here. The Council sent her out on another mission."

"So soon?"

"Not really. You've been unconscious for three weeks."

Three _weeks_? He had already lost more than a year. If he kept losing time at this rate, he was going to end up an old man and not even know it. "How is the campaign going? Have you heard anything?"

"So far so good. It's not easy to get updates these days if you don't have need-to-know, but I have my sources. It's my understanding that we've almost taken Commenor, but Balmorra is posing more of a challenge."

Of course it would. As one of the Separatists' main droid foundries, they could hardly give it up without a serious fight. Its position so close to Kuat and Neimoidia only made it a more critical target. "Anakin?" he asked, but then shook his head. Taria didn't know Anakin. "I need to—"

"Sit down, Obi-Wan." Taria leaned forward again when he stood up. "I don't have the energy to chase you down and chain you up again."

He huffed. "As if you could."

An invisible blow hit him in the chest like an orbak's kick, knocking him back onto the bed. Indignant, he sat up sharply. He hadn't known it was coming — hadn't been able to even sense the strike except by its effects. He was practically helpless. This was unacceptable.

Taria's eyes sparkled, and Obi-Wan regarded her warily. "Suppressants," he said, tasting the word for the first time.

"Suppressants," she agreed. "So you're convinced you're not in a dream?"

"Yes, yes, yes," he said, annoyed. "I need to see Master Che. Or a healer's apprentice."

Taria groaned. "I told you, it's three in the morning. None of the night healers are going to be able to change your medication, and you know Master Che comes in at five thirty. Can't you wait? You really want to wake her up?"

As tempted as he was to remind her that _he couldn't feel the Force_, Obi-Wan had to admit that the prospect of forcibly rousing Vokara Che when nobody was currently dying seemed like a bad idea. She sighed, taking his silence for the acquiescence it was.

"Where are you in such a hurry to go, anyway?" grumbled Taria, snuggling deeper into the chair as if she couldn't get warm enough.

Obi-Wan could think of a dozen places he'd rather be than the Halls of Healing any day, but the meaning of her words struck him suddenly. He'd been dead for a year and a half. His clearances and requisitions would have been archived. The suite he and Anakin had shared would certainly have been reassigned. His name would have been added to the lists of the fallen, and incense burned for him in the funerary hall, since they didn't have his body.

Eyes wide, Obi-Wan looked up and found her already watching him. "Taria."

"Yes," she said, the wry twist of her mouth telling of all the things he was deaf to in the Force.

"I'm sorry."

"For what? Dying? I forgive you, so long as you don't do it again." She reached out with a socked foot and gently kicked his knee. More seriously, she said, "There is no death, Obi-Wan."

At the moment there wasn't the Force, either, he thought. He knew what it was like to lose friends, and carry their absences. "I know. I'm still sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not."

From her tone, Obi-Wan knew she was talking about herself, not him. Did she truly feel that way? She had always amazed him with her ability to find peace with her condition, and after all, your own death was the easiest one to face. It was much harder to be the one left behind.

Anakin would have been at his funeral, he realized, the pain of that thought surprising in its sharpness. Of course he had to die sometime, just as Qui-Gon had, but not like _that_, leaving Anakin alone to carry such a great burden.

"Get some more sleep, if you can," said Taria, yawning. "You've had a rough couple of weeks, even if you don't remember them."

Frankly, Obi-Wan was sick of being unconscious. He considered asking for a datapad to try and catch up on any news he could find, but Taria's eyes were already fluttering closed. She needed sleep, even if he didn't, and it was only a few hours to wait.

"Also I can't believe you don't dream about me. I think I'm insulted," she murmured.

Obi-Wan snorted. Lying back down in at least the outward appearance of obedience, he tucked his hands behind his head. He took a long, slow breath, and reached out for the Force.

Nothing.

It was as if the part of him that was alive to the Force had been amputated. He couldn't even really _try_ to reach, or open himself, because the place inside him where he heard the Force's song seemed to have vanished. There was nothing to open. Unconsciously, Obi-Wan had squeezed his eyes tightly shut in concentration; he opened them, and attempted to relax.

He tried to think of it like a limb that falls asleep. For a while it feels odd, like you don't even have that limb, but in a minute it wakes up and becomes normal again. Surely, when the suppressants wore off, it would be the same with the Force.

The coming dawn was still hours away, and the rhythms of the Halls of Healing continued regardless of day or night. There were more beds in the long room, separated from each other by retractable walls for privacy. Regular as clockwork, night healers came and went like silent shadows.

Taria slept, while Obi-Wan ignored everything else and concentrated on the Force.

In a few hours, he succeeded in giving himself a massive, throbbing headache. But it was worth it because, like wiping grime off a window, the Force returned, layer by painful layer. It was sluggish and reluctant to respond when he called it, but it was there, and simply feeling it move was a relief deeper than Obi-Wan could express.

Giving up on any form of rest, Obi-Wan sat up and crossed his legs. That was where Vokara Che found him.

Technically, he was able to sense her approach, in that he coaxed the Force to tell him of an indistinct movement of some kind. For a moment, Obi-Wan stopped straining and tried to push away the dull roar of pain behind his eyes. The more he could feel the Force, the more an angry cloud of pressure gathered at the edge of his vision.

"Good morning, Obi-Wan." Master Che arrived with a datapad and a healer padawan at her shoulder. Obi-Wan hadn't even been able to tell that there were two of them. "It's good to see you awake."

She didn't look surprised, Obi-Wan thought. He moved to sit on the side of the bed. "Good morning, Master Che. I don't remember much. Can you tell me what happened?"

"And with full mental capacity as well — even better."

Obi-Wan blinked. Had that been in question?

Vokara Che spent a few seconds looking at the datapad mounted next to his bed. Absently, she raised the brightness of the lights near them. "Padawan, I want you to look at these readings. Study them, and see what kind of interpretation you can give me."

The padawan, a teenage Devaronian boy, glanced down at his own datapad and nodded. "Yes, Master."

He left, and Vokara Che turned to Obi-Wan, weighing him with her steady gaze. Obi-Wan had always known her to be compassionate and stern, by turns. He had rarely known her to be troubled, as she looked now.

"How do you feel?"

"Fine," he said, "except that I can't feel the Force."

"Not at all?"

"Very little."

Expectantly, she cocked her head at him.

"When I first woke, it was like the Force didn't exist, but now it just feels... distant. Hard to reach," he explained.

"That is no cause for concern. I had you put on a complete dose of Force suppressant solution, and that is what blocks your connection to the Force. It is beginning to wear off now and, if you don't apply another dose, your full connection should be restored quickly."

"I wasn't aware such a thing existed," said Obi-Wan, curious.

"Few are," said Vokara Che, her voice clipped. "It is dangerous, and not to be used unless it absolutely cannot be avoided."

"How can it even be possible? The Force is within all living things. If it is _suppressed_, shouldn't I be dead?" He vaguely remembered not using the Force on Centares, but it hadn't been the same. He hadn't experienced the horrible dead-limb feeling he felt now.

"I am not completely privy to its exact chemical makeup, but it's my understanding that it agitates the midichlorians in such a way that it makes them unable to function together. The Force is within you and all around you as always." Seeing him frown, she added, "Think about if something were able to somehow scatter the impulses traveling from your eyes to your brain. Both organs are perfectly healthy, they simply can't communicate."

Taria stirred, their voices rousing her to wakefulness. "Force, you're not blind _too_?" she muttered.

What did she mean by _too_? Eyes narrowed, Obi-Wan meant to ask her, but the words stuck in his throat.

She unfolded, yawning, and Obi-Wan could see the terrible thinness of her face and hands. The nearly translucent paleness of her skin. In the night, the shadows and dimness of the lamps had hidden it, but she was very, very sick. In the time he had been gone, her Borotavi syndrome had clearly progressed.

Her eyes were bright, though, when she looked at Obi-Wan; she was happy he was awake, and ready for him to tease her back. He wanted to, but he couldn't think of anything to say. He had known her diagnosis was terminal, before, but it had seemed so distant. Hadn't she been in remission?

_A year and a half_, he thought. Suddenly it seemed like a lifetime.

Obi-Wan's recovery was too slow, and Taria's expression changed in a flash at the look on his face. _"Don't,"_ she said, fierce and low.

He couldn't feel her anger, but he was sure it was there. _I'm sorry_, he wanted to say, but he knew it was the last thing she wanted to hear. Obi-Wan said nothing. The pounding in his head had deepened, and he found it hard to tear his mind away from dwelling on how little time Taria had left. Looking to Master Che, he tried to find his lost thread of thought.

"That doesn't— make sense. How can a synthetic chemical affect such a fundamental part of a life form?" No one outside the Order had the understanding of the Force to be able to manipulate midichlorians — though not for lack of trying — and he would have said that no one inside the Order did either, except for this evidence.

Master Che's mouth quirked slightly. "I told you, I don't know the details. What's more important for us is that, ideally, I want you off it as soon as possible. We don't know what the effects of prolonged use are on... healthy connections to the Force."

"That shouldn't be difficult. You said it's already wearing off."

She nodded once, but didn't speak. Taria watched him with a pained compassion in her shadowed eyes. It was, Obi-Wan thought, probably the way he had just looked at her, and he had to admit that she was right. It was intolerable.

"You asked me what happened," said Master Che abruptly. "Again, I have to say that I don't know. What I do know is this: you were brought here three weeks ago, unresponsive and bleeding from your nose, eyes, and ears. Your body shows signs of severe recurring trauma, most of it healed, but there was extensive scar tissue from past muscle damage.

"If the damage had been recent, we could have repaired it completely. As it was, we did our best to reduce the scar tissue, but that means you will likely experience some weakness and soreness when you start moving around. You have to treat yourself as if you'd been recently injured, not like it happened over a year ago. There is a good chance you will have your full strength and range of motion, but you will have to pursue a diligent routine of strengthening and stretching exercises."

Obi-Wan listened with raised eyebrows. So far, he'd heard nothing surprising except the bleeding from all his orifices part. He didn't remember that.

"You are also underweight. Less so now, since we have had this time to begin correcting your nutrient intake, but still something that will need your attention. None of this, though, kept you insensible for three weeks. What did was the most acute psychic storm I have seen in my entire time as a healer."

And now they were getting to it. "I don't know that term. Is it similar to psychic shock?"

"Psychic shock is the Force equivalent of a muscle strain, and is fairly common. Most often it is a result of overextension, as you know—" she gave him a pointed look "—but there have been cases of psychic shock from violence, like having another Force user enter your mind against your will. A psychic storm is much more rare. I have only seen a few instances personally."

"And?" Obi-Wan prompted, when Vokara Che paused. It was impolite, but he wasn't feeling particularly patient at the moment.

"Psychic storms are a reaction to absolute extremis. When a being has been pushed, physically or mentally, beyond the limits of endurance. Essentially, they are the result of a being turning against themselves, tearing their own mind apart in the Force. The cases I have seen were young, untrained Force-sensitives from underdeveloped planets outside the Republic. Often they had seen their families murdered before their eyes, or had been horrifically abused in other ways, and not knowing how to handle their own power, their reaction became self-destructive."

Obi-Wan had heard of those sad cases too, only no one had mentioned psychic storms. Instead they just said, _He went mad_.

Vokara Che was saying that in the time he spent on Rattatak, Ventress broke him in half.

Frustration simmered inside Obi-Wan, trying to boil up into anger. Releasing it to the Force was like bailing out a sinking ship; for every bit he managed to jettison, far more poured in.

"So, what stopped it?"

"Nothing did."

He stared at her, incredulous. "Then I suppose I'm not actually sitting here, talking to you?"

Only Vokara Che's single raised eyebrow acknowledged his sarcasm. "You are sitting here thinking and talking because you can't access the Force, Obi-Wan."

She was definitely right that he wasn't firing on all cylinders, Obi-Wan thought, because it was only just now that he finally understood what she was trying to tell him. For a moment he just sat, stunned.

Then, he said, "That's ridiculous."

"Obi-Wan—" Taria tried to speak, but he shook his head, cutting her off.

"Master Che, I'm fine. What happened— was a long time ago. I would have had a reaction before _now_, if what you're saying is true. The suppressant is wearing off, like you said, and I can already feel the Force. I'm not raving or bleeding yet."

"Not yet, but you will be." Vokara Che spoke gently, but was unyielding. "We tried everything, for three weeks. Everything, to calm your mind and heal your turmoil. The suppressant was a last resort. Your relationship with the Force is damaged. Your relationship with yourself. You need the suppressant, at least for now."

Obi-Wan glared at her. She was wrong. She had to be. "The only thing damaging my connection _is_ the suppressant. Once it clears, I'll be fine. Probe my mind and you'll see."

"I don't need to," said Vokara Che.

"You don't have any shields, Obi-Wan." In response to his sharp look, Taria lifted one shoulder in an apologetic shrug. "Not a one."

That sounded familiar — but he had begun rebuilding his shielding aboard Anakin's cruiser. He had already improved quite a bit just in those few days. What happened?

Startling, Obi-Wan felt someone sounding him in the Force. Kind of. It was like seeing a vague shape through frosted transparisteel, or trying to hear someone speaking on the other side of a thick wall. It was Vokara Che, he thought, but that was only a guess based on her expression.

"I sense that the darkness is close to you."

She reached out as if to touch her fingers to Obi-Wan's head.

In an instant, a single impulse became the only thing he knew — that he _must_ not be touched. Everything else went white, and Obi-Wan had recoiled halfway up the bed before he realized it.

He froze, staring at her as Vokara Che silently took back her hand. Some kind of point had been made, but he wasn't sure what it was.

That was the first anyone had spoken of the Darkness, and Obi-Wan wished she hadn't, because now he recognized it. His headache, grown into a sharp spike of pain driving through his skull. The shadows that gathered in the corner of his vision, no matter where he looked. The anger that came rushing up out of nowhere and refused to be tamed by all his attempts to let it flow through him.

The darkness couldn't reach him now, but it waited patiently. It would grow along with his connection to the Force, until it swelled again to try to destroy him. Was this the psychic storm she was talking about?

Obi-Wan sensed someone reaching out to him again. This time he checked their faces, and thought it was Taria. She looked at him and he looked back, and could barely feel anything. He _knew_ the glow of her in the Force, but the most he could sense was like picking up an object someone else had been holding, and feeling the latent, quickly-fading warmth they left behind.

She was so far away.

Vokara Che's comparison came back to him suddenly — his disrupted grasp of the Force like disrupted vision. If someone gave Obi-Wan the choice between his sense of sight, or sense of the Force, he didn't even have to think about what he would pick. He of all people knew that blindness was no barrier to being a great Jedi, but live without the Force?

No.

He took a long breath. If the darkness did return? Well, it wasn't overwhelming him now, and that meant he had this time to build up his strength. It had taken him by surprise before, this attack, but now he was ready. He could call on the light, he could fight it.

He had faced darkness many times before. This was just one more battle, and the Force would be with him.

"I don't intend to take any more of the suppressant."

Vokara Che shook her head slowly. "I believe that, as things stand now, you won't be able to function without it. I have drawn up a plan, and assigned a team of healers—"

Obi-Wan stood up. Barefoot and in a shapeless healing robe, he knew he wasn't the most daunting figure — not that Vokara Che could ever be daunted, anyway. But this was not up for negotiation, and she had to understand that.

"Master Che," he repeated, "I do not intend to take any more suppressant. I am happy to hear whatever else you have to say to me before I am released."

He was ready to stand firm through a lengthy debate, but Vokara Che looked at his face and simply nodded. "When you begin to lose control of the Force, you must return and contact me."

"Of course." Her sureness was deeply provoking, and Obi-Wan resolved to never allow that to happen.

"Physically, you are cleared for Temple duty, with the caveat that you should keep strenuous activity to a minimum."

Taria, a traitor, asked, "What's a minimum?"

"One hour a day," said Master Che. "Light exercise is encouraged, of course. Other than that, I just have some details to go over with you about how we expect to move forward."

"My clothes—"

"You're going to need to visit the Records Archivist before the quartermaster can release anything to you," said Taria, pushing to her feet.

"But I believe we still have the clothes you arrived in." Vokara Che stepped away to hail one of the padawans, and Obi-Wan eyed Taria.

"Don't think I missed the fact that you already knew all of this," Obi-Wan said. "You could have told me as soon as I woke up."

Taria pursed her lips. "Hey, it's _her_ job to be the bearer of bad news. I'm just a lowly teacher of lightsaber technique. Speaking of which, I would go with you, but I have a class at seven."

"You would let me wander the perilous Temple halls alone? I'm shocked," said Obi-Wan dryly.

He didn't ask how she could teach a lightsaber class when just to stand she kept her hand braced on the chair back for support.

Vokara Che returned with the gear Anakin had lent him, which had been cleaned and pressed while he lay unconscious. Putting it on, he couldn't help but remember the confusion of waking up with Anakin's great bulk half-immobilizing him, a human space heater when he slept as always. Obi-Wan had found the world shattered into contradictory pieces, none of which fit with each other.

Despite what Anakin told him, while it was just them in that small clinic room, his old reality had overwhelmed everything else. Him and Anakin dealing with trouble on an unfamiliar planet, as usual. It was seeing Ahsoka that truly brought it home to him that things were different, now, and he was living in a strange new world that he didn't recognize.

Thinking of Taria, Obi-Wan wondered how many more surprises lay in store for him.

While changing, he found two transdermal patches on his lower stomach. He didn't know what they were, so he didn't remove them. He would have to ask Vokara Che.

She and Taria had withdrawn down to the room's exit to let him change alone so, when he was done, he went out to meet them. To travel the length of the room, Obi-Wan had to pass niche after three-walled niche, each one with its own bed and its own patient. None were empty. He didn't gawk, out of respect for the privacy of whoever was being treated, but felt grateful to be able to walk out of the hall under his own power.

Near the door, the women had been joined by a third figure. Obi-Wan found himself stepping forward quickly and grinning.

"Garen!"

Garen looked up from talking with Vokara Che, and smiled. "Hey!" he said and, surprising Obi-Wan, his friend grabbed him in a tight hug.

After a single shocked moment of stillness, Obi-Wan somewhat awkwardly patted his back. "It's good to see you, Garen."

"You too," he said, pulling back and then making an overwrought, sorrowful face. "Although, actually, maybe not. You look like you've been spat out by a gundark."

He couldn't say the same about Garen. He had his shoulder-length hair tied back, and wore a stripped-down version of his usual Jedi tunics with a dark, plastoid chest plate and armored gauntlets over his arms. He looked a little tired, maybe, but otherwise just as strong and energetic as always.

"The tunics are a little odd, but surely not that bad," Obi-Wan said, pretending confusion.

Garen took a second look. "Ha. Those are Anakin's."

"I won't be able to get any of my own until I'm no longer officially dead."

"Okay, what do you say we do that, and then get breakfast?" said Garen hopefully. "I'd hate to waste the chance to eat something other than GAR rations."

Taria raised her eyebrows at Obi-Wan. "Now you'll have someone to protect you from falling off a causeway, or being killed by a malfunctioning janitor droid."

"That kind of thing is much more likely to happen _with _Garen than without."

"No way, my priorities are strictly rest and relaxation. No time to waste with shenanigans," said Garen, who had never passed up a good shenanigan in his life. "Besides. Obi-Wan's unkillable."

With an amused snort, Taria said, "Well, I've got to be going. Have fun. Obi-Wan, I'll come find you later."

"Why did that sound like a threat?" said Obi-Wan.

"I'm sure you'll find out."

"Why did _that_ sound like an insult?"

Garen grinned. "Welcome back."

Of course, it was never that easy to leave the Halls of Healing.

Vokara Che first had to introduce Obi-Wan to two different healers, people who he would be working with on what she called "the physical side" of his recovery. Then, she told him about the soul healer she wanted him to see, and gave him the name of the master to contact to make an appointment.

"Developing shielding will be their first priority, so if you can, work on that," she advised.

He did get a chance to ask about the patches. The silver one was the suppressant, which was spent. He could throw it away. The other was to monitor his vitals, and she would prefer that he keep it on for now, she said, in a way that made Obi-Wan want to rip it off immediately.

Finally, though, he and Garen broke free.

Obi-Wan's headache had only worsened, dull pain morphing into stabbing heat, but as he stepped into the halls of the Temple, he felt confident. Behind them, the huge, arched windows had begun to glow with the light of morning.

_The only mastery worth having is mastery of yourself._

Obi-Wan had a lot of practice deciding what he wanted to concentrate on, and drawing his body and mind into tight obedience. A Jedi could survive without food or sleep for days on end, relying on the Force. That didn't mean you didn't feel tired or hungry — it just meant that those feelings didn't matter. They existed, but didn't affect you. They didn't rule you.

His headache was like that.

He acknowledged it, put it to the side, and moved on. It existed, but it didn't affect him.

Personnel records were kept in a separate, smaller complex near the base of the Tower of First Knowledge, close to the Academy. Obi-Wan and Garen took a turbolift to the highest main floor of the Temple. Taria had to come this same way to teach her class, and the halls were probably the most familiar of any in the galaxy to them.

Master Tun, an ancient, wizened Feeorin, had been the Records Archivist since before Obi-Wan was alive. They found him in the first record office, working at a holotable with a padawan.

"Good morning, Master Tun," said Obi-Wan.

He straightened up, sensitive head-tendrils twitching restlessly. "There is a familiar voice," he said. "Obi-Wan Kenobi."

The padawan twitched, glancing up from the holorecord she was viewing and then quickly back down.

"I think I know what I can do for you," Master Tun went on. "You need your record reactivated, yes? Lena, please bring me archive collection TT-503."

"Yes, Master," she said quickly, darting off to the next room.

"Thank you, Master Tun."

He made a short humming noise in his deep voice. "My pleasure. Not much call for this kind of thing, after all. Much more of the reverse."

"Surely there have been some Jedi mistakenly thought dead over the years?" said Obi-Wan, curious. Knowing the kind of missions Jedi Knights were routinely sent on, it seemed likely. On the other hand, the Order typically took recovering its missing personnel very seriously.

Master Tun pondered the question. "Most often, when I make an incorrect entry, it is because I have been deliberately misled."

"For the sake of a mission?" asked Garen. "Like when Siri went undercover and the Council told everyone she'd thrown a fit and left."

With an effort, Obi-Wan kept his expression blank. He didn't think Siri would appreciate that description very much.

"Exactly. Then I have to go back, untangle and undo my own work... It is— unhelpful," he said diplomatically. "Ah, here we are. Thank you, Padawan."

The girl returned to her post, keeping her eyes riveted on the holotable as if the scrolling list of names, planets, and dates were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. Master Tun took the holobook she had handed him and carefully slid it into a port on the side of the table. A glowing menu spread out over his side of the display, and he entered a search term.

"It will take me some time to reactivate everything. You don't need to stay for the whole process, but I will need your biometric signature to begin."

"Of course." Obi-Wan moved slightly to the side, and shot Garen a look. That was the third time he had clipped Obi-Wan with his elbow.

Garen widened his eyes at him, and then glanced meaningfully at the padawan.

Oh, he was trying to communicate. Not losing control of his limbs. It was odd and clumsy, and Obi-Wan felt very strange for a moment. Those kinds of subtle nudges were almost always given in the Force.

When Obi-Wan turned to the padawan, he found her already staring at him. She dropped her eyes immediately, and he frowned. A blue-skinned Chagrian, she was about fourteen or fifteen years old, unless Obi-Wan missed his guess. She wore carved metal cuffs on the horns that tipped her lethorns — a common custom instead of a padawan braid for the Chagrian species — but all the slots meant to be filled with colored tiles were empty. Not even a black one.

Was she unchosen?

"Please place your hand here."

Obi-Wan held his palm over the holotable, where Master Tun indicated, and sent Garen a quelling glare. He had an idea what his friend was so aggressively trying to telegraph, and didn't appreciate it.

"Hm!" said Master Tun, blinking his opaque, yellow eyes at the holo display. It was difficult just from the sound to tell if he was annoyed or surprised, or both. "Ah, there we are. I should have your Temple accesses up in twenty minutes or so, but you will need to be re-authorized for any security levels you held before," he explained. "The only thing that may take longer is your stipend account, since all the funds would have been consolidated into the treasury when your record was archived. It may be a week or more before that can be restored."

"Not a problem." Obi-Wan shrugged. He couldn't remember the last time he had looked at his stipend account anyway.

"Then you will be up and running very soon. Do you have any questions for me?"

"No, I don't think so. Thank you again, Master Tun."

The formidable old master bowed. "It is good to have you back, Master Kenobi."

As soon as they stepped out into the hall and the archive door shut behind them, Obi-Wan said, "Don't."

Garen's eyes sparkled wickedly. "Should we eat breakfast on this floor's refectory? It's closest."

It was also closest to the Academy, and therefore almost always thick with padawans. "I don't think so," said Obi-Wan with dignity. "Honestly, Garen, so much time has passed. Nobody is going to still be thinking about that."

"You didn't feel that padawan's interest. You can't really think that coming back from the dead is going to make you _less_ famous, can you?"

Obi-Wan started walking.

"Where are we going?" Garen called as he caught up.

"Southwestern refectory."

A cloud seemed to hang over Obi-Wan, poisoning Garen's good-natured teasing into something darker. He knew Garen was right; as the war became ever more intense, _Sith-killing_ could only have risen in relevancy.

Years ago, hearing that moniker for the first time had been a shock. It had felt ridiculous, even disrespectful. Jedi were not supposed to be pleased with loss of life, even the life of a Sith, but that wasn't what bothered him. Obi-Wan couldn't help but feel that the praise in the name was a mockery. Finding that purpose-filled serenity in the Force, hanging over a fathomless drop, had allowed him to defeat the Sith — but it was only what he should have done much, much earlier.

If he had, he might have been there when Qui-Gon needed him.

With time, Obi-Wan had come to see past his own grief. It wasn't about him, he had realized. The padawans who used the name were just like he had been as a boy, looking for hope and heroes wherever they could find them. It had helped him understand Anakin's complex feelings toward being called _the Chosen One_.

This was all old ground, well-covered in the past. So why was it bothering him so much now?

"You good?"

"Fine," said Obi-Wan, glancing across at Garen. Not being able to reach out with the Force was infuriating. How else was he supposed to communicate? Words could only say so much.

The walk to where they were going in the Southwest Quarter was simply across and then down one level. They passed through the Academy, where most of the initiates were transitioning from morning meditation to breakfast, before their first class. They ranged by in small groups, friends talking and smiling as they started their day.

Obi-Wan had been one of them and knew what it felt like, but he couldn't feel it now. Leaning into the Force, he touched its flow not like dipping into clean water, but slow and thick. A lightsaber ignited somewhere nearby, and Obi-Wan smelled burning plasma. War, he thought. He would know its sights and sounds anywhere, even here.

The hallway ahead was dark, only the strip of emergency lighting near the floor giving off a dim glow. Urgency thrummed through Obi-Wan — there was something he had to find, someone he had to get to, but he didn't move. There were shapes discarded there in the hall, lying terribly still and quiet, and he knew he couldn't go any further.

A Jedi faced the truth without fear, but Obi-Wan was afraid.

He felt sick, the pain in his head so sharp that it nearly blinded him, and he welcomed it. He didn't want to see. He had never turned away from an awful knowledge before, but now there was nothing he wanted to do more.

"Obi-Wan."

Distantly, Garen's voice filtered down to him. The weight of a hand on his shoulder brought him back to reality.

The hall was normal, brightly lit with the usual lamps and filled with initiates. Obi-Wan had stopped, frozen, in front of the open door of one of the practice rooms. Inside, two younger students were swinging practice 'sabers with more exuberance than technique. That was all he'd heard. That was all.

Garen was looking at him intently, concern clear in his eyes.

Obi-Wan breathed, trying to calm his racing heart. _Fine_ wasn't going to cut it this time, so he went for some disarming partial honesty. "I'm a little disoriented, Garen," he said. "It's strange being back, after..."

He let the words trail off, knowing that Garen would fill the gap with whatever he thought most likely. Garen's hand tightened on Obi-Wan's shoulder before he took it back. "I get that. Just take it slow, okay?"

Obi-Wan nodded, and the rest of their walk to the refectory was quiet. No strange feelings or disorienting visions, just the ever-present splitting headache.


End file.
